RIBERA, GIUSEPPE ( 1 588-1 65 2 ) , called Lo SPAGNOLETTO or "little Spaniard," a leading painter of the Spanish and partly Neapolitan school. He was born at jatiba near Valencia in Spain on Jan. 12, 1588. He studied painting under Francisco Ribalta (c. 1551-1628), the Spanish Caravaggio, whose "tenebroso tech nique" with marked contrast of light and shade, he acquired. He then proceeded to Italy. In Rome he studied Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican; in Parma Correggio's works; he probably also visited Padua and Venice. Eventually he settled at Naples, where he married Catarina Azzolino, the daughter of a painter, in 1616. His work attracted the attention of the Spanish viceroy, the duke of Ossuna, who favoured him, and.whose patronage was continued by his successors, among whom was Count Monterey. For this nobleman he painted the wonderful "Conception" (1635) in the Augustine monastery of Salamanca. After 1637 he was employed on important work in the Carthusian church of S. Martino at Naples. Commissions flowed in upon Ribera. In 1626 he was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome; he was decorated by the pope with the insignia of the order of "the Abito di Cristo" in 1644. Velasquez is said to have visited him at Naples. His influence was felt throughout Italy and Spain, and the popularity of the painters known as the Tenebrosi and natu ralists depended as much on the example of Ribera as on that of Caravaggio. Luca Giordano was his most distinguished pupil. The close of Ribera's career was shadowed by his grief over the abduction of his second daughter by Don Juan of Austria.
Ribera was one of the most able naturalist painters, but he was also a poet. His drawing was precise and also powerful; his figures are true in form but also full of feeling, especially those of old men. In his earlier style, founded on Ribalta (some say on Caravaggio), he displays an excessive love of strong shadows.
His later work was more luminous and of a rich golden tone. Pacheco rightly called him one of the great colourists of Spain. Ribera's religious pictures are free from sentimentality and essen tially Roman Catholic in spirit. Owing to his realistic rendering of scenes of martyrdom of Christian saints it has been said that he delighted in subjects of horror. Thus to quote Byron : "Spag noletto tainted his brush with all the blood of all the sainted" (Don Juan, XIV. 71). Among Ribera's principal works we may mention: "The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew" (I63o) in the Prado; "The Pieta" (1637) in S. Martino, Naples; "St. Agnes" (1641) in the Dresden gallery; "The Descent from the Cross" (1644) in the Neapolitan Certosa : "St. Januarius emerging from the Furnace" (1646) in the cathedral, Naples; and "The Adora tion of the Shepherds" (165o) in the Louvre. He also painted mythological subjects such as "The Silenus" (1626) in the gallery of Naples and "Venus and Adonis" (1637) in the Galleria Nazion ale, Rome. He was the author of several fine male portraits such as "The Musician" from the Stroganoff collection now in the museum of Toronto, Canada. The Prado, Madrid, contains no less than 5o of his paintings.
As an etcher he belonged to the Italian school, and his plates all date from a late period (1621-48). They are masterpieces in direct drawing especially "the Drunken Silenus with Satyrs" (1628) and "Don Juan on Horseback" (1648). Bartsch enu merates 18 plates, of which three are studies of features.
See C. Bermudez, Diccionario Historico; Dominici, Vite de' Pittori (Naples 1840-46) ; A. L. Mayer, Ribera (Leipzig, 1923).