Flemish school; XVI century.

Flemish school; XVI century.
"Virgin and Child.
Oil on panel. Cradled.
It has a frame of the seventeenth century.
Measurements: 28 x 20.5 cm; 51 x 46 cm (frame).
Devotional scene in which the author portrays the Virgin with the Child in her arms. The image stands out for the sobriety of the scene. Framed in an oval, the two figures are arranged on a dark and neutral background without any superfluous detail. Except for the Ave Maria that can be seen in golden letters on the background of the scene. The Virgin tilts her face slightly downward with a reflective and self-absorbed look that adds a degree of drama to the scene, perhaps alluding to the future Calvary of her son. In the case of Jesus, he is oblivious to the future and seated on his mother's lap, he turns the pages of a book, surely the Holy Scriptures. It is interesting to mention this object because it will be recurrent in the iconographic representation of the Virgin, especially in later times when its relevance is questioned due to religious crises.
It is a painting belonging to the Flemish school, since stylistically it presents numerous aesthetic characteristics of that school. In this one, there is a realistic reaction against the fantasy of the international Gothic, it is a painting very influenced by the art of sculpture, it is a painting with a great iconographic sense that allows us two readings, the symbolic and the realistic. There is importance for the detail, with a meticulous description of the elements that appear in the image as the garments or the delicately modeled curls of the virgin, nothing escapes the eye of the painter, the refinement is also abandoned, real beings appear without idealistic intention. The portrait occupies an increasingly prominent place, there is a greater study of light, also veracity of the sense of volume, depth is sought in space, getting the perspective intuitively. It should be noted that the Flemish school was characterized by creating an art for the bourgeoisie with a stable political situation and economic strength. In Flanders a monumental art flourished in the service of the Catholic Church, partly due to the necessary restoration of the ravages that the wars had caused in churches and convents. In the field of secular art, Flemish painters worked for the court in Brussels and also for the other courts of Europe, producing a painting with classical, mythological and historical themes that was to decorate brilliantly the Royal Sites of Spain, France and England.