Spanish artist Jose de Ribera

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Jose (Giuseppe, Joseph) de Ribera is the oldest of the great Spanish Baroque painters, who is hardly even considered a representative of the art school of this country, since he spent most of his life and his entire career in Italy. Nevertheless, he was very proud of his roots and, in addition, lived in Naples, which in the 17th century was a Spanish territory. He had close ties to his homeland and had a huge impact on baroque art, not only there, but throughout the rest of Europe.

He was lucky to work in Naples. After becoming part of the Spanish Empire in 1501 (the city remained under its rule for two centuries), its population tripled, making it the second largest urban center in Europe after Paris.

In the 17th century, Naples was a hotbed of intellectual and creative activity, home to the greatest artists, philosophers, writers and musicians, at least until the great plague of 1565 wiped out half the city's population. Living and working in Naples, Riberawas guaranteed to be surrounded not only by the best representatives of art, but also by we althy patrons.

Early years

Unfortunately, José de Ribera's biography is not entirely complete. There are practically no documents that could shed light on his childhood in Spain. It is known that he was born and baptized in the city of Yativa (San Felipe) in Valencia, was the second son of a successful shoemaker named Simon. He lost his mother when he was only five or six years old.

Becoming

Although at the time, sons were usually trained in the same profession as their fathers, some art historians suggest that Ribera's artistic pursuits may have been encouraged by other artists in his family.

His paternal grandmother's name was Juana Navarro of Tervel, and several artists of that name were known in Valencia. However, this remains just a guess. Ribera's biographer claims that as a child he was a student of the prosperous local artist Francisco Rib alt, although there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

Whatever the facts, he was clearly unhappy with how things were going, so he left his hometown in search of a better life (it is believed that he left Spain due to a quarrel with Rib alta related to the daughter of the master- artist).

Moving

Ribera appeared in Italy in 1611, stopping first in Parma, where, according to documents, he painted a picture for the church of St. Prospero, and then ended up in Rome in 1613. Heremained in Rome until 1616, studying at St. Luke's Academy, living with his younger brother Juan and some other fellow Spaniards in the house of a Flemish merchant on the Via Margoutte.

Naples

Modern sources suggest that during these years in Rome, Ribera led a libertine existence (he was a supporter of a free, hedonistic morality), perhaps imitating Caravaggio, whose art he so admired. As such, he quickly ran out of money and, apparently to escape his creditors, in 1616 he moved to the Kingdom of Naples under Spanish rule, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Fortunately for Ribera, thanks to his roots, he was able to team up with the Spanish elite as well as the Flemish merchants who were in the upper echelons of Neapolitan society and thus were the main patrons of the arts in Naples.

Shortly after arriving there, he entered into an advantageous marriage with Catalina Azzolino, the daughter of the famous and successful artist and art dealer Giovanni Bernardino Azzolino (the haste of the marriage suggests that Ribera may have actually arranged for him even before he left Rome).

Contemporary documents show that the artist spent a lot of time learning Italian, although he did not achieve great success in this: he spoke with a strong Spanish accent and made terrible mistakes in letters.

Fame

After arriving in Naples, his reputation soared todegree that by 1618 Ribera was considered the most popular artist in the city, receiving commissions from such patrons as, for example, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Viceroy of Naples. Overworked, Ribera earned enough money to move into a large house with a garden, just in time for the birth of his first three children in the late 1620s (son Anotonio Simone was born in January 1627, followed by his younger brother Jacinto Tomas in November 1628 and, finally, the younger sister Margarita - in April 1630).

In 1630, Velasquez visited him, as well as the Spanish ambassador, who later became viceroy of Naples. He commissioned several works for himself.

In 1631, Ribera was honored to become a knight of the papal order of the Vatican. This is one of the highest achievements any artist in Italy could hope for.

Ribera's success during the 1630s developed to such an extent that by the 1640s he was able to move with his family to a real palace in the luxurious district of Chiaia, next to the church of St. Teresa degli Scalzi.

In 1641, Ribera was lucky enough to receive a commission for work on the most important religious site in the city - the chapel of St. Gennaro in the Cathedral of Naples.

Later years

The good times came to an end in the mid-1640s, when the artist fell seriously ill and could no longer paint.

Immediately after José de Ribera finally regained his he alth, a popular uprising against Spanish rule led by Tomasso Aniello Masaniello inJuly 1647 forced him and his family to take refuge in the Spanish Palazzo Real, where the painter would meet Philip IV's illegitimate son Don Juan of Austria.

The uprising had serious consequences for Ribera: due to the repressive measures taken by the Spaniards against the rebellious Italians, the artist and his family were expelled by the Italian population of the city.

In 1649, he had a relapse of the disease, and as a result of his inability to work and because of the rebellion, the artist's family began to experience serious financial problems.

The situation worsened when he had to take his daughter Margarita back to his home after her husband's death a few years after their marriage. The difficulties were so great that in 1651 José de Ribera wrote a petition to the king asking for financial compensation for Margherita's widowhood.

The next year, in July, he moved to a smaller, quieter house in the Mergellina district, and died soon after.

Creativity

All surviving works by José de Ribera seem to date from his life in Naples. For the most part, they are religious compositions, as well as a number of classical and genre subjects and a few portraits. He wrote extensively for the Spanish Viceroys, with the help of which many of his paintings were sent to Spain. He also worked for the Roman Catholic Church and had numerous private patrons of various nationalities. Since 1621, most of his works have been signed, dated and documented.

Ribera's paintings are harsh and gloomy, they can be called dramatic. The main elements of his style, tenebrism (dramatic use of light and shadow) and naturalism, were used to emphasize the mental and physical suffering of penitent, martyred saints or martyred gods. Realistic detail, often horrifying, was emphasized with rough brush strokes on thick paint to indicate wrinkles, beards, and bodily wounds. The technique of the artist José de Ribera is characterized by the sensitivity of the contour and the reliability with which he made the transitions from bright light to the darkest shadow.

Besides paintings, he, among the few Spanish artists of the 17th century, produced numerous drawings, and his engravings were among the finest works in Italy and Spain during the Baroque period.

Artworks by José de Ribera

During his career, the painter studied what is connected with religion, including the biography of St. Bartholomew, Mary Magdalene, St. Jerome and St. Sebastian. The latter is a recurring figure portrayed by Ribera both in the traditional manner, pierced by many arrows, and in the not-so-popular manner, being cured of his wounds by Saint Irene.

In one of José de Ribera's paintings, Saint Sebastian is depicted tightly tied to a tree, he looks up to heaven with an expression that speaks of his voluntary acceptance of martyrdom. In the same year that the artist completed this work, another image of St. Sebastian was painted, which hung inState Museum in Berlin before World War II. These two paintings represent two different approaches to the same subject. In the second painting, Sebastian is shown unconscious, on his knees, hanging from a tree to which his hands were tied. As a result, his figure is unusually distorted, which emphasizes the feeling of suffering and martyrdom.

The painter sometimes used as a model for his paintings his own daughter, Mary-Rose, who was distinguished by her extraordinary beauty. In particular, she served as a prototype for the painting by José de Ribera "Saint Inessa". He again took an unusual approach, depicting a girl in a dungeon with her hands folded in prayer and her eyes fixed on the sky. This image is considered one of the most outstanding. The painting was extremely popular with the people of Naples, and the Viceroy bought it for his collection.

The painting by José de Ribera "The Lame" was written in the last period of the artist's work. On it, he depicted a beggar-crippled boy. The child stands against the backdrop of the landscape, as if deliberately putting out his crippled leg. In his hand he has a leaflet asking for help. But despite everything, his face is lit up with a sincere childish smile.