The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700

See how the great Spanish realists of the 17th century combined painting and painted wooden sculptures to create stunning religious imagery, at the National Gallery in London.

The Sacred Made Real at the National Gallery

The National Gallery goes back 400 years to explore the importance of 17th-century religious art in Spain.

The exhibition, taking place in the gallery's Sainsbury Wing, is the first to examine the relationship between paintings and painted wooden sculptures.

Discover how painters and sculptors of the day combined their skills to depict Christian themes such as saints, the Immaculate Conception and the Passion of Christ.

There are 16 polychrome sculptures and 16 paintings to see, displayed side by side.

Paintings on Display at The Sacred Made Real

Many of the paintings in the exhibition have not been displayed for many years – some are being exhibited for the first time.

Highlights include:

• Francisco de Zurbarán's The Crucifixion (1627), last seen in Europe over 50 years ago
• Saint Francis Borgia Meditating on a Skull (1624) by Francisco Pacheco and Juan Martínez Montañés (known as "the god of wood")
• Diego Velázquez's The Immaculate Conception (1618-19) next to Montañés's polychrome sculpture of the same subject (around 1620)
• Zurbarán's Saint Serapion (1628)

Sculptures on Display at The Sacred Made Real

You may have heard of the religious paintings of Velázquez and Zurbarán before, but the polychrome sculptures are less well known. In fact, they've never been the subjects of a major exhibition.

These sculptures from 17th-century Spain were carved from wood, gessoed and painstakingly polychromed (painted in many colours).

Important sculptures to see at the National Gallery's new exhibition include:

• Gregorio Fernández's Dead Christ (1625-30), which uses the bark of a cork tree to represent coagulated blood and bull's horn for Christ's fingernails
• Juan de Mesa's Decapitated Head of Saint John the Baptist (around 1620)
• Alonso Cano's head of Saint John of God (1655)
• Pedro de Mena's Saint Francis Standing in Meditation (1663)

The Making of a Spanish Polychrome Sculpture

Running alongside The Sacred Made Real is a free exhibition in Room 1 at the National Gallery, which explores how to make a Spanish polychrome sculpture.

Discover the entire painstaking process: from the intricate carving of the wood, to the gessoing process and finally the paint finish, which would make the sculpture look startling real.