POWER AND GLORY

Devotioal sculptures and altarpieces apotheotic space retabular

Abstract

Devotional sculptures and altarpieces make up a true scenographic machine designed and equipped to promote and amplify the impact of the messages of faith on the faithful. The construction of these apparatuses of glory involves all the possible devices developed for the promotion of the Theatrvm Sacrvm, which, beyond the sensory system, reaches with intensity the universe of emotions. In this context, they are associated with the sets of religious sculptures
distributed by the altarpieces, inside the post-Tridentine Catholic temples, functions that go far beyond stylistic or simply decorative issues. The present work analyzes some of these possibilities, with emphasis on those of strategic content, constituting a study of the relations between the devotional sculptures and the altarpiece, since, as in the Iberian world, these sculptures find in the altarpieces an apotheotic space, representative of power and glory, worthy of the sacred  niverse.