Christ contemplated by the Christian Soul

This comes from early in Velazquez's career, when Counter-Reformation Spain taught that dwelling on Christ's suffering was a path to salvation, and painters supplied images for exactly that private meditation. Christ sits bound after the flogging, the ropes and rods still lying on the ground beside him. What makes the picture unusual is the small kneeling child, standing for the Christian soul, guided by a guardian angel, while a thin ray of light runs from Christ's head to the child's heart. That pairing is rare. Velazquez, not yet thirty and lately arrived at the royal court, borrowed the soft handling from Italian painters like Guido Reni whose work was reaching Seville in his youth.