Charles Ribera
(1591 - 1652) |
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Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Charles Ribera |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Jativa |
| Nationality: |
Spanish |
| Birth: |
1591 |
| Death: |
1652 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Historic Narratives, Mythological Narratives |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| One of the major painters of the seventeenth century, Ribera is claimed equally by Italy and Spain, though scholars tend to ascribe his style and work to the Italian school. Ribera himself affirmed his Spanish nationality throughout his life, perhaps to distinguish himself from native Neapolitan painters and thereby improve his chances for patronage from the Spanish rulers of Naples. Little is known about Ribera's early career. His training is a matter of speculation. He left his native country as a young man and traveled to Italy around 1606 to 1611. It is generally assumed he arrived there via Naples. Early biographers report travels to the north - a brief stay at Parma (in the employ of Prince Ranuccio Farnese) and then Rome, where he is documented in 1615 living in the via Margutta. In 1616 he is recorded as paying his dues to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and later that year his marriage is recorded in Naples. A recent hypothesis concerning Ribera's early career and development (before his return to Naples) has him beginning his studies in Valencia with an as yet unidentified Spanish master (Francisco Ribalta has most often been cited), followed by a trip to Naples around 1607, a year after Caravaggio arrived in the city. There he may have studied with a Neapolitan Caravaggist such as Giovanni Battista Caracciolo or Carlo Sellito. Sellito's death in 1614 may account for Ribera's departure for Rome. The beginnings of Ribera's oeuvre take shape during the 1620s-a period from which several important works survive. His earliest known efforts are a series of half-length figures representing the senses. Four are known and are now scattered in various museums. A good example is the Sense of Taste (Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum), wherein Ribera already demonstrates his technical brilliance and conceptual originality. His use of genrelike rustic figures to represent the senses of taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch was a new twist on several older traditions. Although brilliant, Ribera's early essays were not sufficiently rewarded to keep him in Rome. In 1616 he no doubt decided that his Spanish connections would stand him in better stead in Naples, governed as it was by a Spanish viceroy. There he joined the workshop of the Sicilian painter Giovanni Bernard Azzolini, then married his daughter and opened an independent shop himself. The duke of Osuna, then the viceroy, soon commissioned pictures from Ribera, intended for the Colegiata of his hometown of Osuna (in Spain). His Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (Osuna, Colegiata, Museo Parroquial) is a competent adaptation of the ideas fomented by Caravaggio and tempered by Guido Reni's* lyrical sense of perfect human beauty. It also demonstrates a fertile mind that created vivid new derivations from established traditions. Ribera's earliest signed and dated work is his Drunken Silenus (signed and dated 1626, Naples, Museo Nazionale). It inaugurates a decade of remarkable pictures that are striking not only for their diversity but also for their originality. None is more remarkable than the Drunken Silenus. Such a brutally honest portrayal of a naked man, his bloated belly exposed and all the imperfections of his flesh systematically portrayed, has no real precedent in Italian or Spanish painting. Although Ribera must have been looking at Venetian art, the conception and treatment of this oddly mocking counterpart to the Venetian nude is all his own. Perhaps painted for Gaspar Roomer, a Flemish merchant living in Naples, Ribera's Drunken Silenus remains to this day one of his most memorable pictures. To this period belong also the Mocking of Christ (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera); Lamentation over Christ (Paris, Louvre); Calvary (Osuna, Collegiate Church); St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgement (signed and dated 1626, Naples, Museo Nazionale), and tne Martyrdom of St. Andrew (dated 1628, Budapest, Szepmuveszeti Muzeum). Each of these works, and many others produced during this period, demonstrate Ribera's meticulous yet economical analysis of physiognomy, his careful and realistic lighting, and his convincingly portrayed emotional states. Ribera's preference for using highlighted areas to create geometric compositional elements throughout the picture is also evident. In the 1630s Ribera was actively patronized, and he reached the full flowering of his style. The range of his subject matter expanded - for instance, he introduced imaginary portraits of philosophers (which were then very popular among collectors). Ribera's versions, his so-called beggar philosophers, were a daring departure from tradition, showing his ancient heroes as shabby mortals instead of idealizing them. Ribera turned out many striking characterizations, evidently seeking out the most picturesque models to achieve the right effects. Often shown as philosophers, these men were also portrayed as saints and sometimes as less understandable subjects. These faithful, shockingly forthright yet compellingly sympathetic portrayals of humanity transcend earlier traditions for such subjects and achieve something new. Commissions rolled in from the king of Spain and from the Spanish court, including the count of Monterrey (then viceroy of Naples) and the Duke of Alcala (who owned several of the beggar philosophers). The Duke of Alcala also had Ribera record the bearded lady, Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son (signed and dated 1631). Now in Toledo (Museo de la Fundaci6n Duque de Lerma), this picture is an unrelentingly honest representation of a natural phenomenon. As Magdalena Ventura confronts us, she does so with a brutal frankness that is nearly overpowering. Nonetheless, the image is mesmerizing and leads the spectator to experience shock, curiosity, as well as admiration and sympathy. Ribera painted a number of his most celebrated religious works during this decade as well. His Trinity of 1632 (Madrid, Prado) is a haunting and very human evocation of a complex ecclesiastical idea. Obviously loosely based on El Greco, Ribera's Trinity is evidence of his breadth of vision. He used those sources that would best suit his specific needs. Hence, when he was asked to paint an Immaculate Conception in 1634 for the high altar of the church of the Convent of Discalzed Nuns at Salamanca by the Count of Monterrey, Ribera turned to Raphael (his Sistine Madonna) for his version. Ribera subtly altered his style by this time, as did many other Neapolitans, responding to the influence of ihe Bolognese, notably Domenichino," who were working in Naples in the 1630s. Ribera's palette sometimes lightens, his colors become more luminous, and there is an effect of atmosphere not found in his earlier paintings. The coveted commissions from the Certosa di San Martino, Naples, also came his way during this decade; his first documented painting for the monks is the Pieta (signed and dated 1637). Ribera's work for the Certosa continued for years. In 1638 he was asked to paint fourteen canvases with images of prophets for the nave, a project completed in 1643. Adopting his well-established device of creating "portraits" of these biblical figures, Ribera shows these prophets as grand and noble in conception. Another group of paintings done for the Certosa are signed and dated 1651; among them is the Communion of the Apostles (still in situ). Ribera also turned his hand to mythologies on occasion. Two of his best known examples were painted in 1637: Apollo and Marsyas (Naples, Museo Nazionale di San Martino, with a second version in Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts) and Venus and Adonis (Rome, Galleria Corsini). Meditations on tragic subjects long favored by the Venetians, these paintings have a strong Venetian flavor, although their highly keyed emotionalism and explicit physical detail mark them as products of Ribera's unremitting naturalism. Before the decade closed, Ribera added several important pictures to his oeuvre. The duke of Medina de las Torres (who replaced the duke of Monterrey in 1637) commissioned a Martyrdom of St. Philip, which was painted in 1639. Now in the Prado, it brilliantly synthesizes all of Ribera's special gifts: his eye for anecdotal detail, his economy of means and expression, his compositional rigor, and his dedicated naturalism. Choosing a moment when the saint's body is in a particularly awkward and vulnerable pose, the picture elicits many levels of response including horror, empathy, and reverence. That same year, Ribera also painted his own version of a popular subject, Jacob's Dream (Madrid, Prado). Superficially a scene of a rustic asleep in the country, the image takes on a deeply mystical quality by virtue of the golden light that ascends over Jacob's head. The scene's transition from mundane to spiritual reality is both subtle and inspired, making this picture one of Ribera's best-loved and most-admired works. In the 1640s Ribera's work became increasingly reductive and profound. The effect was often more mystical and filled with greater psychological insight and intensity. At other times, the necessity of maintaining proper decorum kept Ribera's inventiveness in check. In 1641 Ribera received the commission for the most important project in Naples at that time - the altarpiece for the chapel of the Tesoro of San Gennaro of the Cathedral, awarded after Domenichino failed to complete it before his death. The subject, The Escape ofSu Janarius from the Fiery Furnace, was done in oil on copper and completed in 1646. Not universally regarded as a success, this picture is one of Ribera's most classicizing (and in that sense tame and conventional) efforts. But there were many other examples of the increasingly profound nature of his art. His Clubfooted Boy (signed and dated 1642, Paris, Louvre) employs a genrelike subject to convey a complex message to the viewer. On one level the painting is an elemental and inspiring representation of the triumph of the human spirit over life's vicissitudes. On another, it is a call for charity by which humanity can best find redemption. Ribera's increasingly classicizing approach to painting is clearly evident in his Baptism of Christ (dated 1643, Nancy, Musee des Beaux-Arts) as well as his Vision of St. Bruno of the same year (Naples, Museo Nazionale). In 1647, shortly after the quelling of the Masaniello uprising, Ribera painted a full-length Equestrian Portrait of Don Juan of Austria (Madrid, Palacio Real). Ribera was ill during the 1640s and some of his work was assigned to assistants, yet the decade is considered one of his most important Only one large work, the Adoration of the Shepherds (Paris, Louvre) is dated 1650, and one of his last known works is the St. Jerome (signed and dated 1652, Madrid, Prado). From his last years also comes his largest painting and his last great commission, The Communion of the Apostles (signed and dated 1651), which was done for the Certosa di San Martino. Among Ribera's pupils and followers were Massimo Stanzione* and Bernardo Cavallino,* both of whom are thought to have died in the plague of 1656. Luca Giordano,* perhaps his most famous pupil, later adopted a style to respond to influences from Venice and the Roman baroque painters, such as Pietro da Cortona.* As a result, Ribera's influence waned and his reputation went into decline. It was left to Mattia Preti,* who came to Naples in 1656 after the plague subsided, to reinterpret and renew Ribera's legacy. Today Ribera is admired not only for his skilled and free application of paint but for the profundity of his vision. Not simply a transcriber of reality onto canvas, Ribera condensed and selected the moods and states of mind he conveyed. These reflect an intense spirituality that remains convincing and deeply moving to contemporary eyes. |
Samples of Work
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