Jusepe de Ribera (; baptised 17 February 1591 – 3 November 1652) was a Spanish painter and printmaker. Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referring to a series of Ribera exhibitions held in the late 20th century, Philippe de Montebello wrote "If Ribera's status as the undisputed protagonist of Neapolitan painting had ever been in doubt, it was no longer. Indeed, to many it seemed that Ribera emerged from these exhibitions as not simply the greatest Neapolitan artist of his age but one of the outstanding European masters of the seventeenth century." Jusepe de Ribera has also been referred to as José de Ribera (usual in Spanish and French), and was called Lo Spagnoletto (Italian for "the Little Spaniard") by his contemporaries and early historians.
Ribera created history paintings, including traditional Biblical subjects and episodes from Greek mythology. He is perhaps best known for his numerous views of martyrdom, which at times are brutal scenes depicting bound saints and satyrs as they are flayed or crucified in agony. Less familiar are his occasional, but accomplished portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Nearly half of his surviving work consist of half length portraits of workers and beggars, often older individuals in ragged clothes, posing as various philosophers, saints, apostles and allegorical figures. Ribera's paintings, particularly his early work, are characterized by stark realism using a chiaroscuro or tenebrist style. His later work embraced a greater use of color, softer light, and more complex compositions, although he never entirely abandoned his Caravaggisti leanings.
Very little is known about the first 20 years of his life and there are many gaps concerning his later life and career. He was baptized on 17 February 1591, in Játiva, Spain, his father identified as a shoemaker. He is not recorded again until 1611, when records show he was paid for a painting (now lost) for a church in Parma, Italy. Documents show he was a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome by October 1613 and living in a house in the Via Margutta in 1615–16, at that time known as "the foreigner's quarter", apparently living a bohemian life with his brothers and other artists. Anecdotal accounts written at the time indicate he quickly earned a reputation as an outstanding painter after arriving in Rome and was earning great profits, but also noted his laziness and extravagant spending.
Ribera moved to Naples in late 1616, under Spanish rule at that time, and in November married Caterina Azzolino, the daughter of Sicilian painter Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini. There he remained for the rest of his life, setting up a workshop with many pupils, securing commissions, and establishing an international reputation. In 1626 he received the Cross of the Order of Christ from Pope Urban VIII. His health began to deteriorate in 1643 and his productivity declined from that time on, and by 1649 he was experiencing financial hardships as well. However, when his health permitted, he continued to produce several acclaimed paintings into the last year of his life.
Life
Early biographies
thumb|350px|[[Apollo and Marsyas (Ribera, Naples)|Apollo and Marsyas, 1637, 182 x 232 cm., National Museum of San Martino]]
<blockquote>His Italian biographers have many tales to tell of Ribera's stormy, picaresque career, and picture "Lo Spagnoletto's" life as an endless series of professional intrigues and rivalries, attempted poisonings due to gelosia di mestiere, conspiracies and brawls, triumphs and adversities, dramatic love affairs. Alterations of dark patches and dazzling light, glooms and raptures – just as in his paintings. Perhaps we would do better to keep to the records and established dates of Ribera's life." Jacques Lassaigne (1952) Carlo Celano, and Palomino de Castro y Velasco produced a substantial amount of information on the artist's life that is now known to be erroneous. Much of this misinformation was pervasive well into the 20th century and is occasionally still repeated today. It was long believed he was born in 1587, De Dominici saying he was from Gallipoli, Apulia while Celano stated he was from Lecce. One said he descended from nobility, and another identified his father as a Spanish army officer. Research and documents emerged in the 20th century have proven these false. and "a caricature" by another, although the latter noted a critical examination of it can still provide some insights. A gap of 20 years follows his baptism record, including information regarding his childhood, education, teachers, and when he left Spain. Marriage records show that his father, Simón, married a second time in 1597 when Jusepe was six years old, and a third time in 1607 when he was 16, suggesting some disruption and lack of continuity in Ribera youth. where artist from throughout Europe gravitated, including painters such as Gerrit van Honthorst from the Netherlands, Simon Vouet from France, Adam Elsheimer from Germany, and many others, all exploring various aspects of chiaroscuro and tenebrism in the wake of Caravaggio. The last records of the artist in Rome are a payment of promised alms to the Accademia de San Luca in May 1616,
Neapolitan period (1616–1643)
thumb|220px|[[The Clubfoot|Clubfooted Boy, 1642, oil on canvas, 164 x 94 cm. Louvre]]
The Kingdom of Naples was part of the Spanish Empire during Ribera's lifetime, and was ruled by a succession of Spanish Viceroys. In 1616, Ribera moved to Naples permanently, in order to avoid his creditors (according to Giulio Mancini, who described him as living beyond his means despite a high income). In November, 1616, Ribera married Caterina Azzolino, the daughter of a Sicilian-born Neapolitan painter, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolino, whose connections in the Neapolitan art world helped to establish Ribera early on as a major figure whose presence was to have a lasting impact on the art of the city.
Later life (1644–1652)
Around 1644, his daughter married a Spanish nobleman in the administration, who died soon after. From 1644, Ribera's ill health greatly reduced his ability to work, although his workshop continued to produce works under his direction. In 1647–1648, during the uprising against Spanish rule, he and his family took refuge in the palace of the Viceroy. In 1651 he sold his home, and was in dire financial straits by the time of his death in September 1652.
Work
thumb|[[Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son, "Bearded Lady", 1631, Prado Museum on loan by Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli]]
His early style was influenced by the study of the Spanish and Venetian masters as well as Caravaggio and Correggio. His subject matter was notoriously gruesome, portraying human cruelty and violence with startling naturalism. In the early 1630s his style shifted from stark tenebrism to a more diffused lighting, as seen in The Clubfoot of 1642.
Nearly half of Ribera's entire oeuvre consist of half-length representations of saints, apostles, philosophers, scientists, and allegorical figures. The models for these paintings were the natives from the streets of Rome and Naples, typically humble people such as fishermen, dockworkers, elderly people, and beggars, often characterized by wrinkled skin and ragged clothes, painted with a raw visual intensity.
Ribera’s landscapes were recorded in 18th and 19th century inventories and have been praised in historical literature. However, it was not until the late 20th century when a pair of large canvases (127 x 269 cm.) executed in 1639, were identified in the collection of the , Salamanca, that surviving examples of his pure landscape paintings were known modern scholars. Landscapes are rare subjects in Spanish painting before the 19th century. Among the very few examples are two small oils executed by Velázquez on a visit to Italy. Contemporary historians have remarked on the originality of Ribera’s approach to the subject and noted a contrast with Roman landscape painting of the period, exemplified in the work of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain.
Art historian Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, former director of the Prado Museum, wrote that these landscapes "assure Ribera a principal place in the history of Neapolitan landscape painting" and that "Ribera has given the landscapes his own stamp: even without the signature they would be recognizable as his."
He was an important etcher—indeed, the most significant Spanish printmaker before Goya—producing about forty prints, nearly all in the 1620s.
Some major works include Saint Januarius Emerging from the Furnace in Naples Cathedral; the Descent from the Cross in the Certosa di San Martino, Naples; the Adoration of the Shepherds (1650) in the Louvre; the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; and the Pieta in the sacristy of San Martino, Naples. His mythologic subjects are often as violent as his martyrdoms, the most famous being his renditions of Apollo and Marsyas, now in Brussels and Naples, and his Tityos, now in the Museo del Prado. Alongside eleven drawings, the Prado owns fifty-six paintings and another six attributed to Ribera such as Jacob’s Dream (1639), The Martyrdom of Saint Philip (1639; often described as Saint Bartholomew due to overlapping iconography) or Saint Jerome Writing (1644), credited to him by Gianni Papi, a Caravaggio expert; the Louvre contain four of his paintings and seven drawings; the National Gallery, London owns three; and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando owns an ensemble of five paintings including The Assumption of Mary Magdalene from El Escorial, and an early Ecce Homo or The head of St John the Baptist.
Legacy
thumb|Kitchen with Goat's Head, 1650, [[Museo di Capodimonte]]
Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano were his most distinguished followers, who may have been his pupils; others were also Giovanni Do, the Flemish painter Hendrick de Somer (known in Italy as 'Enrico Fiammingo'), Michelangelo Fracanzani, and Aniello Falcone, who was the first considerable painter of battle-pieces.
Ribera's work remained in fashion after his death, largely through the adoption of his hyper-naturalistic depictions of violence in the paintings of pupils like Luca Giordano. The gradual rehabilitation of his international reputation was aided by exhibitions in Princeton in 1973, of his prints and drawings, and of works in all media in London at the Royal Academy in 1982 and in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992. Since then his oeuvre has gained more attention from critics and scholars.