Jose de Ribera
José de Ribera (Játiva, Spain, baptized on February 17, 1591-Naples, Italy, September 3, 1652) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman and engraver of the XVII, who developed his entire career in Italy, initially in Rome and later in Naples. He was also known by his Italianized name Jusepe Ribera and by the nickname Lo Spagnoletto ("El Españolito") due to his short stature and the fact that he claimed his origins, it being common for him to sign his works as Spanish, Valencian and Setabense, or simply as Spanish. He sometimes did it using the Latin terminology «Josephus Ribera. Hispanus. Valentines. Setaben. (or Civitatis Setabis) », to which he sometimes added « accademicus Romanus » and above all « Partenope », alluding to his place of residence.
He cultivated a naturalist style that evolved from Caravaggio's tenebrism towards a more colorful and luminous aesthetic, influenced by Van Dyck and other masters. He contributed to forging the great Neapolitan school (Giovanni Lanfranco, Massimo Stanzione, Luca Giordano...), which recognized him as his undisputed teacher; and his works, sent to Spain from a very early date, influenced the technique and iconographic models of local painters, including Velázquez and Murillo. His engravings circulated throughout half of Europe and it is clear that even Rembrandt knew about them. A prolific and commercially successful author, his fame flourished during the emergence of realism in the XIX century; he was an essential reference for realists like Léon Bonnat. Some of his works were copied by painters of several centuries, such as Fragonard, Manet, Fortuny and Henri Matisse, among others.
Ribera is an outstanding painter of the Spanish school, although his work was done entirely in Italy and, in fact, there are no known sure examples of his beginnings in Spain. Long labeled as a gloomy and grim creator, mostly because of some of his martyrdom paintings, this prejudice has been diluted in recent decades thanks to multiple exhibitions and investigations, which vindicate him as a versatile creator and skilled colorist. Recent discoveries have helped to reconstruct his first production in Italy, a stage to which the Prado Museum dedicated an exhibition in 2011.
Biography
José de Ribera was born in Játiva, where he was baptized in the parish of Santa Tecla on February 17, 1591. Son of Simón Ribera, a shoemaker by profession, and Margarita Cucó, in the baptismal font he received the name of Joan Josep. He had a brother named Juan who also had to devote himself to painting, although very little is known about him. Very little is known about the family, but it is assumed that the Riberas lived with relative economic ease; the profession of shoemaker was esteemed, since footwear was a garment of certain luxury at that time.
Ribera decided to go to Italy, where he would follow in the footsteps of Caravaggio. While still a teenager he began his journey; first to the north, to Cremona, Milan and Parma, to then go to Rome, where the artist became acquainted with both the classicist painting of Guido Reni and Ludovico Carracci as well as the harsh tenebrism developed by the Dutch caravagists residing in the city. The recent identification of several of his youthful works shows that Ribera was one of the very first followers of Caravaggio; It has even been conjectured that he could have known him personally, since his move from Valencia to Italy had to be several years earlier than the experts believed, possibly in 1606.
Finally, Ribera decided to settle in Naples, perhaps sensing that he would capture a larger clientele; The region was a Spanish viceroyalty and was experiencing a period of commercial opulence that encouraged artistic patronage. The Catholic Church and private collectors (several of them Spanish like him) would be his main clients.
In the summer of 1616 Ribera disembarked in the famous metropolis in the shadow of Vesuvius. He soon settled in the house of the elderly painter Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini, a painter then not very well known, to whom a work is attributed in the church of Sant'Antonio al Seggio in Aversa: The Coronation of the Virgin between Saints Andrew and Peter. Just three months later, Ribera married Azzolini's sixteen-year-old daughter, Caterina Azzolino.
His journey was over, but the heyday of his art was beginning. In a few years, José de Ribera, who was called lo Spagnoletto , acquired European fame, thanks in large part to his engravings; it is known that even Rembrandt had them.
Caravaggio's use of tenebrism was his strong point, although in his maturity he would evolve towards a more eclectic and luminous style. He began an intense production that kept him away from Spain, where he never returned, but he felt united to his country thanks to the fact that Naples was a Spanish viceroyalty and a meeting point between two figurative cultures, the Iberian and the Italian. It is said that when they asked Ribera why he did not return to his country, he replied: "In Naples I feel well appreciated and paid, for which I follow the well-known adage: whoever is well, does not change." And he explained: "My great desire is to return to Spain, but wise men have told me that respect for artists is lost there when they are present, because Spain is a loving mother to foreigners and a cruel stepmother to her children."
The support of the viceroys and other senior officials of Spanish origin explains why his works arrived in abundance in Madrid; The Prado Museum currently has fifty-six of his paintings, another seven attributed and eleven drawings, which in total is one of the largest and best compendiums of his work, including several masterpieces. During his lifetime he was famous in his homeland and Proof of this is that Velázquez visited him in Naples in 1630.
The fusion of Italian and Spanish influences gave rise to works such as the Drunk Silenus (1626, today in Capodimonte) and The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew (1628, in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts). Then began the rivalry between Ribera and the other great protagonist of the Neapolitan XVII century, Massimo Stanzione.
In later centuries, the appreciation of Ribera's art was conditioned by a black legend that presented him as an unpleasant funeral painter, who obsessively painted subjects of martyrdoms with gruesome verism. One writer stated that "Ribera soaked his brush in the blood of the saints". This misconception was imposed in the 18th and 19th centuries, partly by foreign writers who were not familiar with the full output of it. In reality, Ribera evolved from the initial tenebrism to a more luminous and colorful style, with influences from the Venetian Renaissance and ancient sculpture, and he knew how to capture the beautiful and the terrible with equal success.
His range of colors clarified in the 1630s under the influence of Van Dyck, Guido Reni and other painters, and despite serious health problems in the following decade, he continued to produce important works until his death on 3 December. September 1652.
José de Ribera is buried in the church of Santa María del Parto in the Mergellina neighborhood of Naples.
Ribera's disciples included Francesco Fracanzano, Luca Giordano and Bartolomeo Bassante. He also influenced many others, such as the Flemish painter Hendrick van Somer.
Stages of his work
Ribera's early years have remained mired in questions due to the lack of documentation about him and the apparent disappearance of all his works from that time. But in the last decade, several experts have managed to identify more than thirty unsigned paintings as his, which help to reconstruct his youth immersed in the tenebrism of Caravaggio, of which he must have been one of its first diffusers (See The denial of San Pedro).
The oldest known signed work is a Saint Jerome currently held in Toronto, Canada (Art Gallery of Ontario), from around 1614; in the Ribera signature he proclaims himself "Roman academic". But despite the inscription, this painting was disputed by experts until recently, as it differed greatly from the known style of the master.
Ribera's earliest youthful works generally accepted as autographs are four oil paintings from a series of The Five Senses (c. 1615), which are now scattered across four different collections: Museo Franz Mayer (Mexico, D. F.), Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena), Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, USA) and Juan Abelló Collection (Madrid). A large painting, The Resurrection of Lazarus (ca. 1616), was acquired by the Prado Museum in 2001, when its authorship was still disputed. Mention should also be made of a recently authenticated Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence in the Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza and a rare example of a female nude, Susana and the old men (acquired in 2021 by the San Diego Museum of Art). The Borghese Gallery in Rome owns The Judgment of Solomon, a work that was attributed to an anonymous artist and which, by assigning it to Ribera, has indirectly allowed several more works to be reattributed to him. A relevant painting of Saint Martin sharing his cloak with the poor man , painted in Parma, has been lost, although a copy of it survives.
1620s
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Between the years 1620 and 1626 hardly any pictorial works are dated, but most of his engravings correspond to this period, a technique that he cultivated with mastery.
At this time he already showed his taste for the models of everyday life, with a rude presence, which he depicted with tight and delimiting brushstrokes in a similar way to what Nordic caravaggists do, who exert great influence on his works due to their contact in Rome. From 1626, there are abundant dated works that testify to his mastery. His pictorial paste becomes denser, modeled with a brush and underlined by light with an almost obsessive search for material, tactile truth, reality and its relief.
The years between the 1620s and 1630s are undoubtedly those in which Ribera dedicated the most time and attention to etching, leaving some prints of exceptional beauty and quality: Saint Jerome and the angel (1621), Saint Jerome Reading (1624), The Poet and Drunk Silenus (1628; which repeats his painting from the Capodimonte Museum). A total of 17 plates are attributed to him, all but one from before 1630, and it is said that he engraved them only for promotional purposes, to disseminate his art and attract commissions for paintings. Upon achieving success, Ribera would stop recording. With some exceptions, these engravings repeat previously painted compositions, although they are not faithful copies, but introduce variants that improve their composition.
Between the years 1626 and 1632 he carried out more emphatic works that show his most gloomy phase. They are severe compositions with large luminous diagonals that fill the surface, always underlining the solemn monumentality of the complex with elements of powerful horizontality, such as thick stone tombstones or enormous trunks. The series of "San Pedros" that he painted throughout those years.
In 1629 the Duke of Alcalá, Fernando Afán de Ribera, is the new viceroy, and will be the painter's new patron; he commissioned works such as The bearded woman (1631) or a series of Philosophers, in which he left testimony of his most radical naturalism: models of an almost hurtful vulgarity, translated with an intense truth.
1630s
The 1630s are the most important for Ribera, both for the heyday of his art and for his commercial success. The painter clarifies his palette under the influence of Van Dyck and the Venetian painting of the previous century, without lowering the quality of drawing and naturalistic fidelity. A large Immaculate Conception, painted for the Convent of the Agustinas in Salamanca, is considered one of the most important versions of this subject in European painting, and it is believed that Murillo took it into account for his popular later versions.
Her pictorial themes are mostly religious; The artist captures in a very explicit and intensely emotional way scenes of martyrdoms such as the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1644, MNAC of Barcelona) or the Martyrdom of Saint Philip (1639; Museo del Prado), as well as individual half-figures or full-length representations of the apostles (Apostolates), especially those of San Pedro.
However, he also produced works of a profane nature: figures of philosophers (Arquímedes, 1630, Museo del Prado), mythological subjects such as the drunk Silenus in the Capodimonte Museum from Naples in 1626 (it is his first signed and dated painting), allegorical representations of the senses (Allegory of Touch from 1632, Museo del Prado, known as The Blind Sculptor), a few landscape paintings (two have been identified in the Monterrey Palace in Salamanca) and some portraits such as The bearded woman (Magdalena Ventura with her husband) (1631, Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation, Hospital de Tavera, Toledo).
1640s and late years
The decade of the 40s, with the interruptions due to his illness, perhaps a thrombosis (despite which did not interrupt the workshop's activity), brought about a series of works of a certain classicism in composition, without renouncing the energy of certain individual faces. In his last work, he also experiences a stylistic change that returns him to a certain extent to the tenebrist compositions of his first stage; the causes could be his unfortunate personal circumstances. He remained a commercially successful and prestigious artist, and was a teacher to Luca Giordano in his Neapolitan workshop, influencing his style.
The economic crisis that followed the Masaniello revolt in Naples (1647) affected the pictorial production of Ribera, who would also find himself involved in a scandal.
To quell the revolt, Spanish troops had come to Naples under the command of don Juan José de Austria, natural son of Felipe IV. Ribera painted a portrait of don Juan José on horseback (Royal Palace of Madrid), which he later repeated in engraving; it was the last etching he produced, which in later editions was modified to give him the identity of King Carlos II. Ribera was also attributed a coat of arms of the Marquis of Tarifa, dating from around 1629-33, in which the Valencian artist was able to engrave the putti on the upper part; however, the latest studies dismiss authorship.
Around 1647, the scandal that rocked the artist's old age occurred: according to tradition, one of Ribera's daughters, Margarita, was seduced by Don Juan José, an illicit relationship in the case of an unmarried couple. Today it is believed that the young woman in question was not Ribera's daughter, but a niece, but the fact is that after the revolt and the family incidents, Ribera, sick, considerably reduces his work.
His workshop sees the number of officers reduced, fleeing from Naples for fear of reprisals, and yet, he still signs some of his masterpieces the same year of his death and puts an end to long-meditated cycles.
Examples from this moment are The Immaculate Conception (1650, Museo del Prado), Penitent Saint Jerome (1652, Museo del Prado) and a great Sacred Family (Metropolitan Museum, New York), whose tenderness and richness of color are in tune with Guido Reni.
Outstanding works
- Windy silence (1626). The canvas is located at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. From it made Ribera a recorded version, with light variants. This picture reflects Sileno lying on a cloth surrounded by various figures: an ass and a young satire with a cup in the hand, another satirite that pours wine on the cup of Sileno, and a third. On the ground is a cane, a turtle and a snail. Some authors believe that this painting is an interpretation of a bascanal in the course of a celebration to crown Baco, yet others think it reflects the classicist profile as they associate Apollo, the god who in the Renaissance and Baroque iconography is associated with Sileno.
- San Andrés (1630). It is located at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The saint is represented before a dark background embracing the cross of his martyrdom and with a thick hook in his hand, to which a fish is subject. This detail alludes to the fisherman's trade. It appears with the torso uncovered and looks at the figure illuminated from the left. By representing this isolated figure with simplicity and realistic sense, the painter creates an image of profound emotional impact.
- The barbuda woman (Magdalena Ventura with her husband) (1631). The canvas was until a few years ago at the Hospital Tavera de Toledo (Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli) and is currently deposited at the Museo del Prado. It is one of the most unusual paintings of the European painting of the centuryXVII, since it reflects the woman with a male aspect for suffering hirsuism. In the work the psychological drama of women emerges transformed into a man and the resignation of the husband.
- Saint Peter in Penitence (c. 1630 - 1640). The painting portrays the Apostle Peter as an old man of profile in an obscure background, with brighter clothes, hands together and tightened in a gesture of repentance or prayer, while the view is directed to heaven in a profound religious gesture.
- The Immaculate Conception (c. 1630). The painting is located in the Convento de las Agustinas Recoletas de Salamanca church opposite a side of the Monterrey Palace. It is a traditional representation: you saw the Virgin with a blue robe and white robe and incorporated the angels around her. But it draws attention to its unusual format and chromatic exuberance. Dirty and in bad conditions for a long time, it was restored on the occasion of the anthological of Ribera held at the Museo del Prado in 1992. It is considered as an essential work of the most intense pictorism and luminism of Spanish and as a masterpiece of the Baroque painting of Neapolitan and Spanish. It was a personal commission of the count of Monterrey and Virrey de Nápoles Manuel de Zúñiga Acevedo and Fonseca, for his pantheon that was the Church of the Convent.
The Immaculate Conceptionc. 1630. - The Trinity (1635-1636). This painting is at the Museo del Prado, Madrid. There is an almost identical quality replica in the Monastery of El Escorial. In this canvas he combines the tenebrist style of his youthful years, which is appreciated in the violent illumination of the body of Christ, with a pristine pictoricism.
- Assumption of the Magdalena (1636). This painting was at the Escorial but today it is at the San Fernando Academy. It appears in an inventory of 1700 as a "Magdalena with a golden frame of three rods and quarter long". In this work, Ribera, although it represents one of the most important symbols of the Sacrament of Penitence in the world of Counter-Reformation, produced an image that exalts the beauty and female fascination of the saint.
- martyrdom of Saint Philip (1639). This painting is presented at the Museo del Prado, Madrid. It represents the previous moments of the martyrdom of St.Philipe, the apostle who preached in the city of Gerapolis and was crucified. Ribera highlights the drama, insisting on the violence of the executioners and the suffering of the martyr. The matter of this painting was for a long time interpreted as the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew. Although various elements show that it is Saint Philip.
The martyrdom of Saint Philip1639 (Museum of the Prado). - The dream of Jacob (1639). This painting is at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The episode of Jacob's dream is narrated. The dream scale is a symbol of contemplative life, according to Benedictine interpretation. In the centuryXVII frequent versions of the episode with the scale, although Ribera preferred to insist on the humanity of the Pastor.
- Magdalena penitent (1641). Picture of the Museo del Prado, of which there is another almost identical version (perhaps earlier) at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao. This biblical character was already played by Ribera in the Assumption of the Magdalena.
Magdalena penitent1641 (Museum of the Prado). - The foot goes, The patizambo, The crippled or The zambo (1642). This canvas is located at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The picture represents a young beggar with a humble look. Ribera shows the figure of the crippled in an almost monumental way, with almost monochrome tones and a simple compositive structure. Many details are realistic, for example, the deformed foot. This canvas is a faithful testimony to a critique of scientific culture and human misery.
- Santa María Egipcíaca (1651). This painting is found at the Gaetano Filangeri Civic Museum in Naples. It is part of the nourished series of saints and saints who constituted the favorite theme of a clientele deeply marked by the spirit of the Counter-Reform. Ribera treated this theme several times, at the final stage of his life, the artist, marked by various existential difficulties, managed to express more intensely than ever the emotions of his characters, retracting them with a great spirit of humanity. The vigorous naturalism of its first works leads to a more delicate pictorism and the chromatic range is reduced to a stubborn tones. As in mature works, the strong light contrasts are replaced by a more natural use of light.
- Apostolate of the Prado, set of 11 works, whose common theme are the Apostles and Christ the Savior. Of very similar characteristics and dimensions were painted in oil on canvas between the years 1630 and 1632. The collection is currently preserved at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Legacy
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Ribera is one of the key figures in painting, not only in Spain, but also in Europe in the XVII century and, in a way, one of the most influential since its forms and models spread throughout Italy, Central Europe and Rembrandt's Holland, leaving a great mark in Spain.
But the special circumstance of being a foreigner in Italy has made him be seen as a person outside his tradition and his tastes. When he arrived in Italy, the Caravaggesque novelty was in full swing, in tension with the Romano-Bolognese renewal that revived the classicist taste. For this reason, he adopted the tenebrism given by the Flemish and Dutch present in Rome, but he did not fail to see and assimilate some of the beautiful forms of the classicist world.
Lord Byron said of Ribera that he painted with the blood of the saints, due to his intensity in the lines, his torn anatomy and the truculence of some subjects. But Ribera is not rude or primitive; he completes his training by enriching himself with other works of Italian culture that are soon familiar to him. Above all, the study of the great painting of the Renaissance. In Ribera's education there is another element that distances him from Spanish artists: it is the study of classical antiquity, in the same way that the European Renaissance and Baroque masters did. He is interested in mythological themes (although he did not have many commissions of this type) and studies the sculptures of the ancient Roman Empire. His extraordinary quality as a draftsman and his mastery of anatomy also set him apart from the Spanish painters of his time, mostly limited by religious clientele and moral issues.
Throughout his works, we can visualize that Ribera is not going to be a painter with a single register, but that his language is going to stick with admirable precision to each of the events that occurred. Overcoming the initial tenebrism, he will return to the intense contrasts of light and shadow when certain matters require it or when the iconography demands it.
We can say that he is an extraordinary creator since he has the ability to create throbbing images of true passion at the service of a religious exaltation, which is not only Spanish, but of the entire Catholic and Mediterranean Counter-Reformation; his color mastery, which gathers all the sensual opulence of Venice and Flanders, at the same time that he is capable of agreeing on the most refined ranges raised by the most collected lyricism; and his inexhaustible capacity as "inventor" of humanistic types that lend his severe reality to ancient saints and philosophers with equal gravity, make him one of the pinnacles of his century.
In the last thirty years, studies have been carried out, with which new exhibitions emerged that were held in 1992 in Naples, Madrid and New York. A precedent for this was the publication, in the series Clasici dell'Arte, of an almost complete catalog of the paintings attributed to him. With this, an enormous volume of works was made available to everyone that allowed them to study this great artist and overcome the prejudices that distorted his assessment. Already in 2011, an exhibition in Madrid and Naples has captured the latest findings on the artist: his initial stage in Italy. More than thirty unsigned oil paintings have been identified as his, which demonstrate his precocious mastery and place him among the first disseminators of Caravaggio's tenebrism.
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