THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD CHILD AND ITS LINKS WITH THE SEVILLIAN BAROQUE PAINTING

Abstract

The Good Shepherd counts itself among the first Christian iconographies ever created, its ancient origins are deeply rooted in earlier pagan renditions of mythological characters such as Hermes Criophorus and Orpheus. However, once the Paleo-Christian period was over, this representation of Christ faded away into obscurity until the Renaissance, where it regained popularity. In Seville, Murillo incorporates a significant modification to it, as he infantilizes the figure of Christ. This new model achieves an outstanding success as proven by other talented Sevillian painters such as Domingo Martínez and Juan Simón Gutiérrez, who both followed in their master’s footsteps and furthered this particular style. Valdés Leal was the only one to suggest yet another alternative model.