Luis de Morales and the de Feria counts. The reconstruction of the historical, cultural and religious context of the early period of the artist’s works
Abstract
The article explores how the work of the Spanish artist Luis de Morales (1509/1511–1586) was influenced by religious ideas of the Council of Trent period, based on the artist’s relationship with Pedro Fernandes de Cordova y Figueroa (1518/1519–1552), the fourth count de Feria (1528–1552), and his wife Anna Ponce de Leon (1527–1601). The article deals with the connection of the de Feria counts with Juan de Avila (1499/1500–1569) and Luis de Granada (1504–1588), the key figures of the spiritual life of the Iberian Peninsula in the second half of the XVI century, whose teachings made a great impact on them. The de Feria counts were de Morales’ major customers in the 1540s; he created a lot of paintings for their family castle in Zafra, including “The Agony in the Garden”. The article identifies the influence of religious mystical literature on the nature of the imagery in some of Morales’s compositions from the early period of the Extremaduran master, establishes their relation with the devotional practice of the time, makes a note of predominance of the dramatic plots from the Passion of Christ in his later art. All of that demonstrates influence of the spiritual culture of Spain in the 16th century, his customers’ personalities, first and foremost, distinguished church figures, as well as representatives of the highest aristocracy, including the de Feria counts who steered the work of Luis de Morales towards the hot topics of the Counter-Reformation period, which found a most profound expression in his art.
Keywords:
Luis de Morales, the work of paintings of Spain in the 16th century, Pedro de Cordova y Figueroa, Anna Ponce de Leon, spiritual literature of Spain in the 16th century, Counter-Reformation, religious iconography, the Passion of Christ
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.