Carvings from the main altarpiece of Obanos

Unfortunately, the altarpiece that presided over the old church of San Juan Bautista has not reached our days, when it was demolished in 1911. When the altarpiece was disassembled, the lumps and reliefs that were part of it and that we know from a historical photo of that time were removed. The contract to make this piece of furniture was made in 1587 or 1588 between the vicar, regiment and primicieros of the town and the sculptor Juan de Anchieta in a period of intense activity, for which he was to be paid 200 ducats each year in two installments. We know that his widow, Ana de Aguirre, received 400 ducats from the first fruits of Cáseda, Obanos and Aoiz. Its polychromy was done at position by Juan de Landa, as well as those of Añorbe and Tafalla, between 1598 and 1606.

Its images were initially distributed among the local residents, who later brought them to the new parish, inaugurated in 1912. After a selection that was deemed necessary, several of them were returned, and six carvings from this altarpiece, which are scattered in the interior, are currently preserved in the church. In the attic of the neo-Gothic altarpiece only the Romanesque sculptures of the Virgin and Saint John for the Calvary have been reused. Both figures wear heavy cloths with deep folds. In the sotocoro are housed in niches the carvings of St. Peter and St. Paul, which have the terribilità and anatomical exaltation characteristic of Michelangelo's Romanism.

However, the best carvings that reveal the hand of the great artist from Guipuzcoa are those of St. John the Baptist and the Virgin and Child with St. John, which were arranged in the central niche as the head of the altarpiece and in the attic respectively. The one of the Baptist presents him seated on a rock with his left knee raised conquering the space of the spectator. He wears a tunic of heavy folds that reveals his bare chest. board his hands expressively, while the index finger is introduced, as if it were a separator, in one of the pages of the book he carries. He has dense hair with long Laocontian locks. This work of gouge also defines the fleece of the lamb's wool. His pose reminds us of a study for a nude man and a nude from the thrones of Michelangelo's Sistine.

As García Gainza has correctly pointed out, the extraordinary group of the Virgin and Child with St. John is one of the most successful sculptures by the sculptor from Guipuzcoa, in which we can appreciate a synthesis of the monumentality of Michelangelo's marble statues and the eurythmy and grace of Raphael. The Gospels do not record this meeting between the two cousins during their childhood, but the message announcing the future passion of Christ that it contains, the naturalness of the infantile attitudes and the authority of the great Italian masters of the High Renaissance with Leonardo da Vinci at the head who represented this topic, justify that it was maintained and enjoyed popularity after the Council of Trent, as happened in Obanos in an altarpiece dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It is a group in which the figures of the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist are represented upright, as we see for example in the same topic that Bartolomé Ordóñez carved in Carrara marble in Zamora, following Italian models.

The whole is dominated by the sensation of a block, carved from a single walnut trunk, from which the edges of the Virgin's mantle and the bent right knee of John Child, which is crossed in scissors, protrude conquering the exterior space. Mary has the solemn head of a Roman matron with powerful neck, short chin, profile Hellenic and receding hair parted in the middle, but what best defines her in this topic is her concentrated expression, thinking about the cruel fate of her son to fulfill her redemptive mission statement . Respecting the physical contact , she holds the Child with an interposed cloth in which she delicately sinks her fingers softly, ignoring the hardness of the material. The naked Child is placed in a position parallel to his mother, holding the orb and with his legs crossed. San Juanito, characterized early as a hermit, wears camel skin and adopts a precarious balance by leaning on one leg, placing the other on the labarum, which has lost the cross, symbol of the future suffering and triumph of Christ. The most striking from an expressive point of view here is the perfect physical and spiritual link between the figures achieved with their looks or the delicate gesture of Juanito touching the foot of Jesus, which only the most qualified artists achieve. It is even more valuable that this work has preserved the polychrome of Juan de Landa, with natural branches in the mantle, the polished incarnation and the golden hair.