🎨 Who created the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025?
The author of the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 is Javier Sánchez de los Reyes, a Sevillian painter and designer with a very long career in the world of brotherhood posters. Born in Seville, he holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Seville and has dedicated a large part of his career to capturing Holy Week on canvas, with an unmistakable style that draws from the most classical sources but with a very personal brushstroke.
Sánchez de los Reyes is no novice at this. He has created posters for brotherhoods throughout Andalusia, and his work is highly appreciated in the brotherhood world. In fact, he had already been the author of the Seville Holy Week Poster in 2012, so his return thirteen years later has been received with genuine enthusiasm. As he himself confessed at the presentation, painting the official poster again "is an enormous responsibility and an immense joy. Seville is the city from which I learned to paint."
📅 When was the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 presented?
The official presentation of the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 took place on Friday, 1st March 2024, in the Hall of Posters of the Real Maestranza de Caballería in Seville, a luxurious setting that has already become a tradition for this event. The event, organised by the General Council of Brotherhoods and Confraternities, brought together numerous representatives from the brotherhood world, authorities, and lovers of Holy Week who did not want to miss the debut of the image that would announce the 2025 Passion.
🖼️ What does the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 look like?
The Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 is a work measuring 150 x 110 cm, created using mixed media on canvas. In it, Sánchez de los Reyes wanted to capture the very essence of Sevillian Holy Week through the figure of a Nazarene in the foreground, carrying the cross on his shoulder, walking through the streets of the city.
The composition has an overwhelming visual force. The absolute protagonist is the Nazarene, depicted in profile, with his gaze lowered and absorbed, in a moment of absolute recollection. The light falls directly on his figure, creating a very dramatic chiaroscuro that recalls Spanish Baroque painting, especially masters like Zurbarán or Valdés Leal. In the background, a narrow street in Seville can be discerned, probably from the Santa Cruz or San Bartolomé neighbourhood, with that charm so characteristic of the city.
One of the most striking details is the treatment of the tunic, an intense purple that contrasts with the dark background, and the cross, which the Nazarene carries with impressive naturalness and realism. The brushstroke is loose but precise, with a very rich texture that invites you to come closer and contemplate the details.
🎯 What does the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 represent?
The Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 represents, in the words of its author, "the intimate moment of prayer in the street, that moment when the Nazarene walks alone, in silence, but accompanied by an entire city that contemplates him." It is an image that speaks of solitude, of recollection, of deep faith, but also of belonging to a collective tradition.
Sánchez de los Reyes wanted to avoid overly clichéd or folkloric images to focus on the essence of what it means to live Holy Week from within: the inner gaze, the path, the cross. The Nazarene is not a specific image of any particular brotherhood, but an archetype, the representative of all the Nazarenes who each year take to the streets of Seville to perform their "estación de penitencia".
🔍 Differences between the 2025 Poster and the 2024 Poster
To better understand the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025, nothing beats comparing it with the previous year's, created by the Sevillian painter Manuel Gavira. The differences are notable and reflect two very different ways of understanding brotherhood posters:
2024 Poster (Manuel Gavira)
- Style: Hyperrealistic, almost photographic
- Protagonist: Close-up of a crucified Christ (the Christ of Mercy from the Brotherhood of Santa Cruz)
- Composition: Central, frontal, impactful
- Light: White, diaphanous light, highly contrasted
- Background: Neutral, dark, without urban references
- Colour: Cool tones, blues and greys
- Inspiration: Photography and contemporary realism
2025 Poster (Javier Sánchez de los Reyes)
- Style: Baroque, painterly, with loose brushstrokes
- Protagonist: Nazarene carrying the cross, in profile
- Composition: Diagonal, dynamic, with depth
- Light: Dramatic chiaroscuro, warm light
- Background: Recognisable Sevillian alley in the background
- Colour: Warm tones, purples, ochres and golds
- Inspiration: Spanish Baroque painting (Zurbarán, Valdés Leal)
While the Official Poster of Holy Week 2024 opted for the direct impact of a hyperrealistic close-up of a crucified Christ, the 2025 one chooses a more painterly and environmental view, where the protagonist is integrated into the urban landscape of Seville. It is a turn towards the classical, towards the Sevillian pictorial tradition, but without renouncing a modern execution.
💡 Inspiration and symbolism
Javier Sánchez de los Reyes himself has revealed some of the keys to his inspiration for the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025. He confesses that he has looked a lot at the great masters of the Sevillian Baroque, especially Zurbarán, for his ability to create atmospheres of recollection and spirituality through light. He also acknowledges the influence of Valdés Leal, especially in the dramatic treatment of the figures and in that feeling of contained movement.
But it's not all about the past. The artist has also been inspired by the city itself, its streets, its corners, that special light that Seville has when evening falls. The alley in the background is not a specific one, but an ideal recreation of that "Sevillian soul" that we all recognise.
Furthermore, there is a very beautiful symbolic detail: the cross carried by the Nazarene has a texture almost of freshly carved wood, as if it still retained the splinters from Golgotha. It is a nod to authenticity, to the genuine, to the Passion lived first-hand.
👑 What does the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 represent for Seville?
For Seville, the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 is much more than a simple announcement. It is the image that for an entire year will represent its Holy Week, the one that will travel to tourism fairs, the one that will adorn thousands of homes, and the one that will go down in history as the official portrait of the 2025 Passion.
The president of the Council of Brotherhoods and Confraternities, Francisco Vélez, expressed it this way during the presentation: "This poster is a success because it captures the essence of what it means to be a Nazarene in Seville. It is not a specific image, it is the soul of all of us who each year take to the streets to bear witness to our faith."
And the truth is, deep down, that anonymous Nazarene walking with the cross through the streets of Seville is all of us. Or at least, all of us who have ever felt the call of La Madrugá, the smell of incense, the sound of a distant drum, or the shiver of a saeta in the night.
🏨 Experience Holy Week with THE SUN PLACES
After being moved by the Official Poster of Holy Week 2025 and planning which processions you want to see, it's time to think about rest. Because experiencing Holy Week in Seville is wonderful, but it's also exhausting: hours on your feet, endless walks, intense late nights... You need a place to recharge your batteries.
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In addition, on our website, in the Things to do in Seville section, you will find many recommendations to complete your trip: visits to the Santa Cruz neighbourhood, tours of the Royal Alcázar, walks through the Cathedral, the best terraces for tapas, and, of course, the most outstanding events of Holy Week.
Contact THE SUN PLACES and allow us to help you find the perfect accommodation so that, when the streets of Seville fill with incense, you are there, experiencing it first-hand... and resting like a king.