Luis Tristan
(1585 - 1624) |
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Secular Narratives, Mythological Nattarives Art Work
| Name: |
Luis Tristan |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Toledo, Spain |
| Nationality: |
Spanish |
| Birth: |
1585 |
| Death: |
1624 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Mythological Nattarives |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Noted as El Greco's most gifted and original pupil, Luis Tristan contributed significantly to the development of Castilian painting during the first third of the seventeenth century. Born around 1585, Tristan was apprenticed to El Greco between 1603 and 1606, whereupon he undertook travels to Italy sometime between 1607 and 1613. (Some sources affirm the end of his trip in 1611.) The terminus post quern is 1613 because in that year we know he was commissioned to execute a Last Supper for the Convent of La Sisla, near Toledo. Tristan remained there until his death in 1624. After Juan Bautista Maino* gave up pointing in 1613, Tristin was left virtually unchallenged in Toledo. Balancing his allegiance to El Greco's mannerist principles with the new Caravaggist realism he encountered in Rome, Tristan's work swings between these two extremes, moving closer to one and then another, depending on the commission. His Crucifixion (Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz), painted for the Hospital de la Misericordia, adopts El Greco's model but injects a stronger level of naturalism into the image. Tristan's Adoration of the Shepherds, part of the high-altar retable he painted in 1616 for the Church of Yepes (Toledo; which remains in situ), follows Italian models more closely. That retable originally included six scenes from the life of Christ as well as eight figures of saints in bust or half-length format. Most noted of these is his Saint Monica (Madrid, Prado), one of the most deeply moving pictures of the early seventeenth century. Here his rather blunt technique and his pragmatic realism produce an unforgettable emblem of piety. Tristan's Louis of France Distributing Alms (dated 1620, Paris, Louvre) is regarded as one of his most important pictures. Here his sense for the literal truth produced a powerful image, all the more striking for its occasionally awkward passages. Like most painters of religious subjects, Tristan's principal aim was to stimulate reverence through an evocation of emotion and faith. His surviving pictures show an artist earnestly struggling to achieve those goals, and succeeding through a direct and often unsophisticated use of verisimilitude coupled with an understanding of how figure placement and scale can make a vast difference. |
Samples of Work
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