|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Ribera: A Spanish Realist in Baroque Italy
| Article
# : |
20026 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1992 |
1,583 Words |
| Author
: |
Jason Edward Kaufman
Jason Edward Kaufman is an art historian and critic based in
New York. |
It's not an exhibition for the squeamish. The central gallery is like a chamber of horrors. Villains smirk with delight as they taunt, tie, flay, and crucify seminude old men. The depiction of the kindly victims' agony leaves little to the imagination. In today's vernacular, the show is "gross." Notwithstanding, this exhibition is a treat for artists and connoisseurs--albeit not for the weak-stomached. For the author of this grisly panoply panoply of pain, the Spanish-born Italian master Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), was one of Baroque Europe's greatest painters.
To mark the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and the Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples, collaborated to mount a commemorative retrospective that is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through November 29. It is a superb exhibition, including nearly all the artist's most important canvases (excluding his ensemble for San Martino, Naples) and a generous assortment of prints and drawings. From one great work to the next--seventy-two in all--the exhibition presents Ribera's greatest achievements.
There is no question that Ribera excelled at painting martyrdoms. But his arresting style made memorable his efforts in other areas as well. His ascetic saints and philosophers, his biblical and mythological tableaux, and his genre scenes are psychologically rich and emotionally strong. Ribera's powers of observation capture a portraitlike specificity that makes his unidealized characters seem familiar and accessible. And his skill in representing the passions imbues these figures with pathos and humanity.
In his mature work, Ribera coupled naturalism (the legacy of Caravaggio) with classicism (the tradition of Raphael, Michelangelo, and the Carracci). He brings ancient philosophers and martyrs down to earth and into the present; but he gives them muscular physiques and elegant gestures that suggest their elevated status. This union of naturalism and classicism--the competing artistic currents in Counter-Reformation Italy--reached a unique balance in Ribera's oeuvre.
Though of humble Spanish birth, Ribera spent his entire career in Italy. Little is known of his youth and early training in Jativa in the province of Valencia, or even why he moved to Italy around 1611, when he was about twenty. After touring the north, he settled in Rome in 1615, joined the painters' academy, and began to assimilate the Caravaggism prevalent in the artists' quarter. The four surviving components of his series The Five Senses evince
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
