A very cool
Spanish painter. He worked for most of his life in Badajoz, a town on the
Portuguese border, and his
style-formed away from the influence of the court or great
religious and
artistic centres such as
Seville - is highly distinctive. His
pictures are usually fairly small and he concentrated on
devotional
images.
He painted numerous versions of
the Virgin and Child, sometimes with the infant
St John,
and touching visions inspired by the theme Ecce Homo, which are among his most
popular works.
The
piety of his work has earned him the
nickname 'El Divino'. His style owes something to
Netherlandish art, but his misty modelling seems to derive more from
Leonardo da Vinci.