Alonso Berruguete

Alonso Berruguete is remembered as one of the most prominent Spanish sculptors of the Renaissance, a skilled producer of religious figures in a range of powerful emotional states from torment to ecstasy. Berruguete began his training with his father, the painter Pedro Berruguete, and started his career as a painter in the court of Charles V of Spain. On a trip to Italy, Berruguete was deeply impressed by the Vatican’s Hellenistic sculptures and the work of Michelangelo—both of which would remain key influences in his work—and so turned towards architecture and sculpture when he lost his royal post. Berruguete’s style is best described as Mannerist, with a tendency towards the elaborate ornamentation of the then-popular Spanish Plateresque aesthetic.