When studying them in the History career they left me impressed, Montesinos for his sermon before the authorities and notables of the island of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) in 1511 and Las Casas for his indefatigable fight for the freedom and human dignity of Indians and later as blacks, to whom he consecrated his life and his property. Amen to his overwhelming book “Brief relation of the destruction of the Indies.”
Montesinos’ sermon was decisive in the awareness of Las Casas and has been the trigger for the picture, the link between the two parts of it between the earthly part where Las Casas is debating and the heavenly or spiritual with Montesinos in the pulpit.
The sermon has allowed me to represent them in the same space and allows us to understand the awareness of Fray Bartolomé and the physical presence of Montesinos within the canvas.
To represent them, inform me of the habits of the order, of its possible external appearance by documents of the time and diverse bibliography, always looking for a truthful and naturalistic image according to the energy that their lives and their writings give off.
I have portrayed Fray Bartolomé in his beginnings, just entered the order and in that moment of reflection, of tension, before his awareness and before the battle that he is going to wage for the freedom and dignity of the Indians, along with what which will be their weapons: pen and paper.
Below right the miter that he will receive for his apostolic work, he was bishop of Chiapas and on the table a placard with his career.
Above him as a pillar and spiritual food in that battle that he is going to undertake, the words of Montesinos.
I introduce part of the sermon, of the fierce and accurate sermon to show the strength, the value of the words and the value of Montesinos that I place at the time of his reading.
Thus, in the painting, in an austere environment but rich in color, the two figures and the sermon are collected in the same scene.
Serve to remember or discover the text and these two brave Dominicans of exemplary lives to whom I wanted to pay tribute and contribute to spreading their work and memory.