Spanish school; second half of the 16th century.

Spanish school; second half of the sixteenth century.
"Virgin and Child.
Oil on panel.
Presents faults and restorations.
Measurements: 46 x 33 cm; 61 x 47 cm (frame).

The painter offers us a scene of very long tradition in the Christian West, the Virgin Mary seated, embracing in her lap Jesus Child and holding with the other hand a phylactery. The artist concentrates exclusively on the two figures, ignoring the background, painted in a neutral tonality against which the figures of the mother and child stand out. The Virgin and Child are in profile towards the viewer, oblivious to his gaze. The Child, completely naked on the lap of his wood, assumes the gesture of blessing with his right hand, thus alluding to the responsibility that the child must assume. Since the end of the Middle Ages, artists insisted on representing, in an increasingly intense way, the affective bond that united Christ with his Mother and the close relationship between them, which was encouraged in the Renaissance. Spain was, at the beginning of the 16th century, the European nation best prepared to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art due to its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. Painting reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this desire to return to the classical Greco-Roman world, which in its nudes exalts the individuality of man, creating a new style whose vitality exceeds mere copying. Soon the anatomy, the movement of the figures, the compositions with a sense of perspective and balance, the naturalistic play of folds, the classical attitudes of the figures began to be valued; but the strong Gothic tradition maintained the expressiveness as a vehicle of the deep spiritualistic sense that informs our best Renaissance works.