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n majestic angel receives the viewer with outstretched wings, brandishing his sword. His serene androgynous gaze assails the demon subdued at his feet, before the edge of his weapon does. His shining armor, crowned by iridescent wings and wrapped in a pink cloak of floating folds, contrasts with the sobriety of his gesture. In the lower part of his gleaming breastplate, the celestial Jerusalem is reflected. The struggle of the archangel Saint Michael not only represents the eternal combat between good and evil, light and darkness, in Christian theology; it is also the incarnation and symbolic representation of celestial chivalry whose ultimate vocation is the search for God. Beyond theological questions, el Bermejo manages to challenge the modern viewer with a spectacular composition, yes, but whose theme is deeply present in the life of every human being: the struggle to conquer the so-called "low" passions that stir us.
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This Saint Michael Triumphant over the Demon with the Donor Antoni Joan (1468) is a paradigmatic example of both the technical skill and the iconographic genius of the Cordovan painter. If we observe the demon subdued at the archangel's feet closely, we will notice that the infernal creature also wears a golden armor of exquisite craftsmanship, like that of Saint Michael, albeit with the unsettling shape of a reptilian face. While the archangel's armor reflects the celestial Jerusalem, the demon's represents a deformed bestiality. Thus el Bermejo expresses the fundamental duality of the human being, capable of the best and the worst, since, as the philosopher Blaise Pascal affirmed, man is halfway between the angel and the beast. Not in vain does the donor plead, he is praying, witnessing the combat between both forces; a combat that is not external, but is continually fought within himself. This is just one of the pictorial and iconographic geniuses of the artist, who excels in both apotheotic and greatly simple scenes.
Both the chromatic richness of his works and the brilliant detail of the fauna and flora invite the visitor to maintain a state of sustained contemplation
In that sense, we can contemplate his magnificent Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (1470), who bows with respect and compassion before a lamb that approaches him with a canine attitude, although it is a symbolic representation of the Lamb of God, the prefiguration of the coming of Jesus. As in all of Bermejo's work, the sacred and the human are inseparably united. This work stands out for the tender bond between the lamb and the wild prophet who, barefoot, shows great simplicity and love for nature and its creatures which, like the bird at his feet, show his deep communion with it.
Both the ineffable chromatic richness of his works and the brilliant detail of the fauna and flora invite the visitor to maintain a state of sustained contemplation before each of the compositions. The case of the Pietà Desplà (1490) —whose iconographic program was conceived with the humanist of the same name— is especially paradigmatic in this sense. In this work, about seventy species of fauna and flora represented with total accuracy have been identified, which shows Bermejo's masterful capacity for observation and recreation of nature. The following video explores some of these astonishing details, in which faithful representation and fabulation go hand in hand:
This is the case of the humanized face of the lion that appears in the lower left margin of the Piedad Desplà and on whose forehead an insect rests: his anguished face laments the death of Christ. In addition to these fanciful details, we can appreciate the incredible realism of the physiognomies present, for example, in the Arrest of Saint Engratia (1472-1477), in which the facial imperfections of the characters denote a marked representational level, or in the naked bodies of the Descent of Christ into Limbo (c. 1475), in which a majestic Christ wears transparent veils that reveal his sex in a risky iconographic gamble. This Dantesque scene populated by demons shows, in the upper left margin, a meditative and melancholic demon observing the scene from a distance while flames burn at his feet. A reflective fallen angel, an ambiguous and dual image of our humanity that expresses the eternal questions about our destiny and seems to announce Rodin's The Thinker. With the same originality and creative force as the great masters of all time - such as the mystical, poet and English artist William Blake- Bermejo masterfully manages to create an enduring interrogation about our condition, a true marriage between Heaven and Hell.