School of Luis de Morales

School OF LUIS MORALES "El Divino" (Badajoz, 1509 - Alcántara, 1586).
"Pietà".
Oil on panel.
Repainting and restorations. Presents label of the Artistic Heritage Protection Service.
Measurements: 38 x 29 cm; 65 x 54 cm (frame).
This work shows us the theme of the Pietà. In it we can see the Virgin resting her head on her son, while holding him from behind. The use of cold and muted tones added to the type of composition, placing the Cross in the background, then the Virgin and finally, in the foreground, the figure of the Dead Christ. It gives rise to establish that it is a work of the workshop of Luis Morales el Divino, since it replicates some of the Piedades that the painter made. An example of this is the work made in 1560 and which is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The iconography of the Pietà arises from a gradual evolution of five centuries and, according to Panofsky, derives from the theme of the Byzantine Threnos, the lamentation of the Virgin over the dead body of Jesus, as well as from the Virgin of Humility. The first artists to see the possibilities of this theme were German sculptors, the first example being found in the city of Coburg, a piece from around 1320. With the passage of time the iconography will spread throughout Europe, and in the seventeenth century, after the Counter-Reformation, it became one of the most important themes of devotional painting.
Morales developed an active artistic career that forced him to travel frequently to arrange commissions, carry them out or control their realization. When he achieved great fame, Morales established a workshop as a base to carry out all commissions. His technique was highly appreciated for the creation of highly studied compositions, providing a very personal and novel style. He was praised by the treatise writer Palomino who nicknamed him the Divine, explaining that he called him the Divine, because everything he painted were sacred things, as because he made heads of Christ with such great delicacy, and subtlety in the hair, that the most curious in art causes to want to blow them to move, because it seems that they have the same subtlety as the natural ones.