Viceroyalty School; Cuzco, XVII century.

Viceroyalty School; Cuzco,
"The Child of the thorn".
Oil on canvas.
It presents faults and restorations.
Measurements: 47 x 33 cm; 54.5 x 41 cm (frame).
The Christian art was delighted throughout its history, and especially in the Modern Age, projecting on the innocent childhood of Jesus the shadow of the cross. The contrast between the happy unconcern of a child and the horror of the sacrifice to which he was predestined was designed to move hearts. This idea was already familiar to the theologians of the Middle Ages, but the artists of that time expressed it discreetly, either through the worried expression of the Virgin, or through the bunch of grapes that the Child squeezes in his hands. It was especially in the art of the Counter-Reformation that this funeral presentiment of the Passion was expressed by means of transparent allusions. Zurbarán shows the Infant Jesus pricking himself with his finger while braiding a crown of thorns and this is the model adopted by this painting.
The Cuzco School, which emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued with vitality in the nineteenth century, developed its own language from the encounter between European models and the creativity of its workshops. Among its distinctive features are the hieratic frontality, the reduction of the perspectival space, the chromatic intensity and the incorporation of decorative elements inspired by the local flora. In this painting, the large flowers that run along the dress and the plant motifs that frame the lower part reinforce this integration between the sacred and the natural American exuberance.