Lorenzo de Avila's workshop

Workshop of LORENZO DE ÁVILA (Avila, c. 1473/1492-Toro, 1570).
"The flagellation of Christ".
Oil on panel. Cradled.
It presents restorations on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 100 x 81 cm.
Aesthetically the monumentality of the figures that compose the scene, stands out for the elongation of the anatomy and especially the posture that all the characters adopt, acquiring a torsion that is reflected mainly in the body of Christ. They are figures of soft but forceful forms, with modeled bodies, both in the characters that flank the figure of Christ, as well as in Jesus himself. With respect to the background, the dimensions of the architecture in general show a harmony with respect to the figures, although their presence is merely circumstantial. The attention to detail and the quality of the artist is evident in the nails and the crown of thorns on the checkerboard floor. As for the iconography, we find the flagellation of Christ on the column. Throughout the History of Art, and especially from the Middle Ages onwards, the representation of the Flagellation of Christ tied to the Column has been one of the themes most treated by artists, making this one of the moments in which they could best express the suffering of Christ during the Passion. It also served as a source of inspiration for numerous mystical writers who recreated the rawness of the moment, even counting the number of lashes Christ received, sometimes with exaggerated figures such as the 5475 blows that St. Bridget tells us about. Moreover, this iconography was very powerful in fostering popular devotion, since the faithful are moved by a man who is unjustly scourged. Stylistically we observe this iconographic typology for the exaltation of the beauty of the body of a young man, a figure that stands out from the rest of the characters that make up the scene, for being stripped of their clothes, in addition, in this representation, the body of Christ emanates a light that makes us put the focus of attention on his figure. The aesthetics of the work indicate that it probably belongs to the artistic circle of Lorenzo de Avila, a Spanish Renaissance painter, also known as the Master of Pozuelo, in honor of a town where he had painted an altarpiece, whose name is unknown. Although Lorenzo de Avila was born in Avila, he is first mentioned in Toledo in 1507, where he was commissioned three drawings of indeterminate subject matter for the cathedral, which would serve as a model for the embroidery that would cover the processional cross of Corpus Christi.Lorenzo de Avila was able to move to Toledo to train with Juan de Borgoña, whose style was reflected in his paintings and whose influence continued well into the second half of the 16th century. In 1521 we find him in León, where he remained until 1524, painting the Disputation of Jesus with the Doctors in the cloister of the cathedral, now disappeared. Later he is recorded in Pozuelo de la Orden, in the province of Valladolid, where he received his first payment in 1528 for an altarpiece painted with Andrés de Melgar, which was transferred to the collegiate church of San Isodoro de León at the beginning of the 20th century. He moved to Toro in 1529, where he set up a painting workshop in which other local painters worked, among them his master's son, Juan de Borgoña el Joven, Blas de Oña, Alonso de Aguilar and Luis del Castillo, and his son, Hernando de Ávila, was painter to Philip II.