Francico de Guevara Rizi
(1614 - 1685) |
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Secular Narratives, Portraiture Art Work
| Name: |
Francico de Guevara Rizi |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Madrid |
| Nationality: |
Spanish |
| Birth: |
1614 |
| Death: |
1685 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Portraiture |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Still too little appreciated, Rizi has recently regained some attention from contemporary scholars who no longer regard his efforts as a sign of decadence in Spanish painting, but instead view him as one of the earliest and most talented participants in the internationalization of Spanish painting that took place after the middle of the seventeenth century. Born in Madrid to the Italian painter Antonio Ricci, who had come to Spain to help decorate the monastery of El Escorial, Francisco was part of a painter family that included his brother Fray Juan, who made his reputation as a painter of monastic subjects. These are connected to the international Caravaggesque movement. Francisco himself was the student of Vincencio Carducho* and a representative of the energetic Italianate baroque style that became popular in Spain during the second half of the seventeenth century. Rizi spent most of his life in Madrid. Apprenticed to Carducho when the latter was painter to the king, Rizi joined the royal household in 1638. Rizi played an important role at the court and was an influential teacher whose many pupils account for the rapid absorption of new baroque models by younger Spanish painters. His earliest royal patronage came around 1635. In 1639 he participated in the decoration of the Gilded Hall in the Alcazar, with two double portraits of medieval Spanish kings, which are now lost. His earliest known surviving work (Family of the Virgin, dated 1640, Madrid, Condesa de Casa Loja) still reflects the influence of Carducho, particularly in the facial and figure types as well as its lighting, but five years later Rizi was fully mature. His Adoration of the Magi (dated 1645, Toledo, Cathedral) shows him developing a greater cohesion of the whole, a freer brush, brighter colors, and more solid figural types - all of which are the product of his study of Rubens* and Italian painting and are the hallmark of his maturing style. Rizi's successes continued. In 1650 he produced what has been called the first high baroque altarpiece in Spain: the Virgin and Child with Sts. Philip and Francis (El Pardo, Madrid, Capuchin Convent), with its wonderful balance of massive, stable compositions and frothy, weightless details, is at once serious and charming. His blend of decorative sensibilities with earnest religious sentiment found many supporters. In 1653 Rizi was made painter to the Cathedral of Toledo, for which he produced several major pictures. He was also, despite the absence of an official appointment, contributing regularly to decorative programs at the court, notably supplying paintings for the Buen Retiro theater (Teatro del Coliseo). In 1654 he was involved in two paintings for the main altarpiece of the Cathedral of Plasencia and in 1655 he was commissioned for an altarpiece for the parish church of Fuente el Saz in Madrid. Still in situ, that portrayal of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, with its molten brushwork and its solid yet actively conceived forms, is highly reminiscent of Pietro da Cortona,* though it is interpreted in a fluid and original personal style. In 1664 Rizi began a collaboration with Juan Carreflo* which included frescoes for the cupola of San Antonio de los Portugueses in Madrid, produced between 1665 and 1668. Rizi (with his experience painting for the Buen Retiro theater) undoubtedly produced the fictive architecture, while Carreno must have produced a number of the figures. Rizi is also credited with the compositional schema behind some of Carreno's most successful altarpieces, notably the Mass of St John of Matha (dated 1666, Paris, Louvre). By 1656 Rizi had been officially appointed a royal painter, a position he held until his death. He continued to be called upon to produce diverse pictures including stage designs, theatrical decorations, easel paintings, and frescoes. Frescoes, in fact, took up most of his time. We know he undertook projects for the Alcazar, as well as churches in Madrid and Toledo. Of these, the decorations done in 1666 for the walls and vaults of the Toledo Cathedral (Camarin of the Virgin del Segrario) are the most well preserved. Much else has been lost. His designs for the sets of Andromeda and Perseus, preserved at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, provide an invaluable record of seventeenth-century Spanish stage design. Among the most bizarTe of his surviving paintings for the court is one of his rare entries into the realm of secular reportage: his meticulous portrayal of the outdoor public spectacle of 1680, the so-called Auto de Fe or "Act of Faith" conducted by the Inquisition in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid and presided over by the king. Now in the Prado, RizTs portrayal, dated 1683, is a more curious historical document than a major artistic achievement. His standing in royal circles was compromised by the regency of Queen Mariana, which began in 1665. Though he was the senior royal painter, Rizi was passed over for appointment as court painter in favor of Carreflo in 1669. Rizi, meanwhile, applied for appointment to a position at the Escorial in 1669 and was denied. Complaining of having been shoved aside, Rizi was a virtual exile from court during much of the 1670s, though he supported himself with commissions from provincial churches and monasteries around Madrid. In 1677, thanks to the efforts of Juan Jose de Austria, who had become chief minister and had banished Queen Mariana to Toledo, Rizi regained favor at court. Among his commissions were the fresco decorations for the Capilla del Milagro in the Convent of the Descalzas Reales, which reflects his undiminished powers at theatrical architectural ill us ion ism and polite, if somewhat stilted, religious narrative. An influential teacher, Rizi died in 1685, thereby ending an important phase in the history of Spanish high baroque painting. |
Samples of Work
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