MORALES, Luis de
(b. ca. 1520, Badajoz, d. 1586, Badajoz)

Pietà

c. 1568
Oil on walnut panel, 72 x 50 cm
Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao

Luis de Morales was especially fond of the theme of the Pietà, in which he expressed the pathos of Christ's suffering and His Mother's grief as she holds the body of her dead son. On this occasion the artist focuses his attention on the composition, the central axis of which is the stake on which Christ was crucified. By presenting only the upper part of the Fifth Anguish, avoiding the whole of Christ's body in His Mother's lap, Morales stresses the emotional charge of the scene.