Picturing intimacy in an Spanish Golden Age convent

Recently, scholars are beginning to examine the visual culture of female co nvents, including art made by nuns. In the not-too-distant past nuns' art w as judged by the standards in place for professional artists and dismissed as amateurish. This study (re)examines five paintings produced by three or more sixteenth-century discalced Carmelites in Valladolid (Spain). Conceive d for private viewing only by nuns, the unusual Christ of the pictures corr esponds to a (gendered) Carmelite prayer defined by the saintly reformer, T eresa of Avila, in books. For her nuns in community the paintings stimulate d prayer with vivid reminders of the Bridegroom to whom they were joined in spiritual matrimony at the time of their profession. This ideal Christ and spouse validated them when a patriarchal church dismissed them because the y were women. The article concludes the five pictures served a unifying fun ction within the Valladolid convent in difficult times following the death of Teresa, when Carmelite friars sought to increase control over her nascen t female religious foundations.