LUIS DE MORALES, known as EL DIVINO. — Spanish painter, born in Badajoz around 1500 and died there on 9 May 1586. He was among the most active painters of his time.
Among his numerous works, scattered in various museums around the world, as well as in Spanish ones and in churches, the following are noteworthy: the *Ecce Homo* in Seville Cathedral; *Christ with the Cross*, the *Madonna and Child with St. Joachim and St. Anne* (dated 1546) in the church of the Immaculate Conception in Badajoz; a *Christ* and a *Desolata* in the Museum of Toledo; *Christ at the Column* in the church of San Isidoro Real in Madrid; the *Pietà*, the *Virgin and Child*, the *Annunciation* in the Prado Museum; the *Immaculate Conception* and the *Virgin and Child with the Son* in the Museum of Valladolid.
An artist of profound mystical and pathetic sentiment, his art reveals Italian influences, especially Lombard in the characteristic sfumato of his works, and of Flemish primitives in the coloring and elongation of his melancholic figures, sometimes a little cloying, yet typical products of Spanish religiosity.