Our Lady of Sorrows:
The fingers of the hands interlock in
front of the right breast; the upper torso is aimed to the
left and the gaze is upward in the tradition of Mary at
the foot of the Cross. The eyes are realistically sculpted
and painted, not glass. The face is very young, the
expression sad. The fingers are polished apparently from
repeated touching, as if by petitioners.
This is a beautiful and unusual piece. The pattern of
the polychrome is in a tradition other than that usually
seen in the churches of Oaxaca. Both mantle and robe are
in the same design of very large squared flowers
(perhaps a sunflower?) and heavy tracery of stems on a
blue-green background. The heart of each flower is a
solid, large surface of gold. The border is heavy gold
and the mantle is lined in a powdery red. A couple of
areas in the folds of the mantle suggest that more than
one hand worked on the polychrome and here the petals of
the sunflower are more evident. The folds and drape of
the clothing suggest that it is sculpted rather than
shaped cloth and gesso. There are sharp angles where one
expects folds and curves.
The polychrome seems old but in places has a texture
different from that of the whole. There is some
deterioration at the edges of the mantle as it falls
from the head. The polychrome has flaked away from the
right shoulder and from the mantle beneath the right
arm. At the right shoulder, wood can be seen.
Local Name: La Madre de los Dolores
Basis for Identification: Praying
saint; veil with wimple; eyes cast upwards and to the
left
Site: Church of Santo
Domingo Díaz Ordaz
Location: South
wall of the nave, just past the narthex
(see note).
Media and construction: Polychrome.
Eyes: painted.
Comparable santos in Oaxaca: Achiutla,
Santa Ana del
Valle, Coixtlahuaca,
Cuilapan1,
Cuilapan2,
Ejutla, Mitla, Nochixtlán,
Ocotlán, Díaz
Ordaz, Tamazulapan,
Teitipac,
Teotitlán, Teposcolula
(in Calvary group), Tlacolula,
Xoxocotlán, Yanhuitlán (?), Zimatlán.
External Links:
Wikimedia Commons:
Mater
dolorosa
Wikipedia: Our
Lady of Sorrows
Christian Iconography: Mater
Dolorosa,
The Sorrowful Mother
Next: Some other statues
that were not photographed for this study
Previous santo
Introduction to San Juan
Guelavia
Santos Home Page
Note: On
this
site,
references to the cardinal directions always assume
that the main altar is at the east end of the church,
the narthex or entry area at the west end, and the two
walls
of the nave on the
north and south. (The
nave is the long central section.)
Actual orientations may differ.
The photo shown here is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
license. You are free to share or remix it on two
conditions: first, that you attribute it to the
photographers, Claire and Richard Stracke, without
implying any approval of your work on their part;
second, that if you alter, transform, or build upon
this photo, you may distribute the resulting work only
under the same or similar license to this one.
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