# Piedad with Canon Lluís Desplà

The Piedad with Canon Liuís Desplà is one of the unacknowledged masterpieces of the European Renaissance by Bartolome Bermejo, which is characterized by naturalism and traditional Flemish art styles. “The Piedad” is classified as a mountain and valley series that portrays remarkable weather phenomena affected by the rage and calmness of clouds. The painting focuses on the facial expressions of the leading figures, a high level of detail, and references to other artists' depictions. This painting panel was commissioned for the donor’s private oratory of a chapel. This painting is the last of Bermejo’s artwork to be finished until he stopped working and eventually vanished.

## Description

In the Piedad, Bermejo uses an illusionistic language by creating a sense of capturing reality and sensory representation. Bermejo distinguished his subject matters with a series of deeply Spanish artisanal techniques and depicts each object with bright colors, transparency, polished gloss, gleaming metal, and splendid stone, gold, and silver materials. This showcases how Bermejo applies detail to his work in depth using the Flemish oil glaze technique. The Piedad is painted on a polychrome wooden sculpture with three panels, a Catalonian traditional material that is moveable. Bermejo signed his painting with an inscription in all capital letters in a classic manner to evoke antique Latin inscriptions. This showcases Bermejo's interest in ancient Roman culture. The edges of Mary's mantle have the remarkable embedded texture of gold patterns, and the angle perspective of the robe is portrayed as actual fabric. This showcases the detailed way that Bermejo applies detail to his work using the Flemish oil glaze technique.

### Crucial figures

The painting distinguishes two crucial figures, St. Jerome and Canon Liuís Desplà, who are side by side with the Virgin Mary as the central focus, grieving over the death of her son Jesus. St. Jerome is a priest who wears a red and white church robe and reads through the scriptures of the bible while kneeling to the side of death Christ. Below St. Jerome, Bermejo included St. Jerome’s feline companion, a lion, in the scene to reference how St. Jerome tamed the beast in the wildness. Canon Desplà is an archdeacon wearing thick dark robes who held an influential position in Barcelona. Desplà was fascinated by Bermejo’s Flemish techniques and works of art and became a personal client. Desplà requested Bermejo to include a portrait of him as a participant in the Christian drama of the Piedad scene. Desplà intended to portray and publicize his authoritative position as an Archdeacon to demonstrate his piety by kneeling on the right side along the Virgin Mary and the death of Christ by showing his devoutness and remorse within the scene. Also, he wanted to be in the same scene as St. Jerome, whom he adores, one of the scholarly fathers of the church. Bermejo does not idealize Desplà; he paints the archdeacon with sagging skin under his eyes.
The three leading figures in the foreground (Jesus, Mary, and Jerome), Bermejo have detailed facial expressions. St. Jerome looks sad while going through the bible. Jesus gives a breathless look after his final moments living on earth. The unique saddened expression of the Virgin Mary shows a good display of her half-closed eyes, slightly parted lips, and downward curved corners of her mouth. The haloes on their heads symbolize their holy devotion. Bermejo included two types of gold rays: Jesus and St. Jerome have star-shaped gold rays, while the Virgin Mary has circular gold rays.

### Landscape

The sky background has several unique weather effects that give a more natural appearance of the sun setting over Jerusalem and the landscape environment. He applied distinctive details of wind-torn and stormy clouds, flickering light sources, and flocks of birds well. He distinguishes the dark stormy clouds from a passage in the gospels that describes Jesus's death and the possible coming of the eclipse.
The same applies to the landscape, visualizing all living animals, insects, mountains, valleys, and other towns and plants' life subject matter with highly detailed depictions. Within the landscape of the Piedad, the painting has dramatic elements to give a contrasting meaning to the environment and subject matters that Bermejo has embedded into the scene. Bermejo depicted Jerusalem based on the Gothic architectural style.
The scene includes two small details within the background landscape. On the left, a hermit sits at the entrance of a mountain cave. On the right, a woman is seated with her spinning wheel in her stone house in Jerusalem. Both of them have their unique visual details. The hermit’s side is represented by the uneven thickness of parallel strokes of the brush, while the woman’s side shows interesting domestic architectural details of the bricks and plaster.