The first room is given over to the exhibition’s most ambitious loan: a complete paso<\/em>, the Camino del Calvario<\/em> (Road to Calvary) by Gregorio Fern\u00e1ndez, the leading sculptor active in Valladolid in the early 17th century, when the city was briefly the capital of the kingdom. The group consists of five life-size carved and painted figures. Such ensembles were made to be carried through the streets during Holy Week, seen from below and in motion. At the Louvre they are set at human height, a choice the curators explain as a way to allow the most direct observation possible.<\/p>\n

The effect is double-edged, and productive. Removed from the procession, the figures lose the theatre of the street but gain scrutiny: the viewer can study the carving of a face, the painted flesh tones, the cut of a garment, as one would a painting. That shift from devotional spectacle to museum object is, in a sense, the subject of the whole show.<\/p>\n