Velázquez Christ

Around the 1632 Velazquez made one of his more famous works, by its aesthetic quality and the history that turns around it. Originally the painting was property of the convent of the Benedictine Nuns of San Placido of Madrid. Its donation is attributed to Felipe IV given by repentance because he fell in love with a nun of the same place. Another theory indicates that the donation was done by D. Jeronimo de Villanueva, Greater Protonotario of Aragón, as a result of a diabolic matter that happened in the convent when the Inquisition had to become invlolved.

Description of the picture.

Velázquez paints the Christ following the iconography accepted in the century XVII (it is curious to observe that his teacher, Francisco Pacheco, painted the Christ Crucified with the same iconography), that is, with 4 nails and feet side by side leant in a little bracket of wood and with all weight in a leg leaving the other resting . The arms draw a soft curve instead of a triangle. Enough, without wastes of flights like the paintings form the era, the cloth of purity (also called perizoma), is quite small, that way the naked body can be shown to the maximum and makes possible to do a muscular study of the human body. The head has a narrow luminous halo that feels like it emanates from the own figure; The face falls on the chest revealing enough of his features and noble facial features; The nose is straight. Over half of the face is covered by the long hair that falls straight and in vertical like announcing the happened death for the injury that appears in the right side. It lacks totally from the dramatism of the baroque style. Blood is minimal compared with another baroque examples, only a little in the hands, in the feet and in the injury of the side.