Giuseppe Ribera
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Image:Penitent Saint Peter-by Giuseppe de Ribera.jpg
Giuseppe Ribera (January 12, 1591 - 1652) was the name given in Italian to Jusepe (de) Ribera or José (de) Ribera, also called Lo Spagnoletto, or "the Little Spaniard," a leading painter of the Neapolitan or partly of the Spanish school, who was born near Valencia, Spain at Xátiva, now named San Felipe de Jativa.
His parents intended him for a literary or learned career; but he neglected these studies and apprenticed with the Spanish painter Francisco Ribalta. Longing to study art in Italy, he made his way to Rome. Early in the 17th century a cardinal noticed him drawing from the frescoes on Roman palace facade, and housed the ragged stripling. Artists had then already bestowed upon the alien student, who was perpetually copying all sorts of objects in art and nature, the nickname "Lo Spagnoletto."
In the cardinal's household Ribera was comfortable but dissatisfied, and one day he decamped. He became a follower of Michelangelo da Caravaggio's style, or one of the so-called Tenebrosi, or shadow-painters owing to the sharp contrasts of light and shade marking their style. He traveled to Parma, where he completed a painting on Jacob's Ladder, now in the Prado Museum, Madrid. From Parma, Ribera traveled to Rome, and then to Naples.
Neapolitan Period
Template:Commonscat Ribera was as yet still poor and inconspicuous; but he married the daughter of a wealthy picture-dealer in Naples. The "Martyrdom of St Bartholomew," which the father in-law exhibited from his balcony to a rapidly increasing and admiring crowd, attracted the attention of the Spanish viceroy, the Count de Monterey. From this nobleman and from the king of Spain, Philip IV, commissions now flowed in upon Ribera.
With prosperity came a grasping and jealous selfishness. Ribera was chief in the so-called Cabal of Naples, his abettors being a Greek painter, Belisario Corenzio, and a Neapolitan, Giambattista Caracciolo, determined that Naples should be an artistic monopoly. By intrigue, terrorizing and even personal violence on occasion, they kept competitors away. Annibale Caracci, the Cavalier d'Arpino, Guido, Domenichino, all of them successively invited to work in Naples, found the place too inhospitable. The cabal ended at the time of Caracciolo's death in 1641.
The close of Ribera's triumphant career has been variously related. If we are to believe Dominici, the historian of Neapolitan art, he totally disappeared from Naples in 1648 and was no more heard of: this being the sequel of the abduction by Don John of Austria, son of Philip IV, of the painter's beautiful only daughter, Maria Rosa. But these assertions have not availed to displace the earlier, well-authenticated statement that Ribera died peaceably and wealthy in Naples in 1656. His own signature on his pictures is consistently Jusepe de Ribera, Español. His daughter, so far from being disgraced by an abduction, married a Spanish nobleman who became a minister of the viceroy.
In his earlier style, founded (as we have seen) sometimes on Caravaggio and sometimes on the wholly diverse method of Correggio, the study of Spanish and Venetian masters can be traced. Along with his massive and predominating shadows, he retained from first to last a great strength in local coloring. His forms, though ordinary and sometimes coarse, are correct; the impression of his works gloomy and startling. He delighted in subjects of horror. Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano were his most distinguished pupils; others were also Giovanni Do, Enrico Fiammingo, Michelangelo Fracanzani, and Aniello Falcone, who was the first considerable painter of battle-pieces.
Among Ribera's principal works should be named "St Januarius Emerging from the Furnace" in the cathedral of Naples; the "Descent from the Cross" in the Neapolitan Certosa, generally regarded as his masterpiece; the "Adoration of the Shepherds" (a late work, 1650), now in the Louvre; the "Martyrdom of St Bartholomew" in the museum of Madrid; and the "Pieta" in the sacristy of San Martino, Naples. His mythologic subjects are generally unpleasant: for example, the "Silenus" in the Studi Gallery of Naples and "Venus Lamenting over Adonis" in the Corsini Gallery of Rome. The Louvre contains altogether twenty-five of his paintings; the National Gallery, London, two — one of them, a Pieta, being an excellent though not exactly a leading specimen. He executed several fine male portraits; among others his own likeness, now in the collection at Alton Towers.
Besides the work of Dominici already referred to (1840-46), the Diccionario Historico of Ceán Bermúdez is a principal authority regarding Ribera and his works; also E de Lalaing, Ribera (in Histoire de quatre grands peintres), 1888.
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