We went yesterday to see this exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.  For those not familiar with the gallery, it is the oldest public art gallery in England and is located in Dulwich Village which is lovely although ridiculously expensive (even by London standards) part of the city.  Ribera was a 17th C Spanish artist, but who worked mostly in Italy (although the part under Spanish rule).  The reason that we went to the exhibition was not because we knew of Ribera's works or that it particularly appealed to us but the exhibition manager is my step-daughter and this was the first exhibition that she had put on since taking over the job.  As the title implies the exhibition is concerned with Ribera's depiction of violence in a religious and mythological context with three main exhibits: The flaying alive of St Bartholomew (one of the least referred to of the 12 disciples - the story of his death comes from much later); the martyrdom of St Sebastian (a 3rd C Roman soldier and convert); and the flaying alive of a satyr by the god Apollo.  I am not sure I would want any of the pictures in my sitting or drawing room (assuming they would fit) but Ribera was clearly a very good artist and the exhibition was very well set out - not just my personal bias but the view of reviews.  I might add that it is the curator who choses the subject not the exhibition manager.

Tim

There was an good article that appeared just a few days ago in The Guardian online all about Ribera's works in general with also some interesting reader's comments below the article:

Master of gore: the violent, shocking genius of Jusepe de Ribera (The Guardian)

There was also a review (5 stars) of the Dulwich exhibition:

Ribera: Art of Violence review – savage masterpieces lay brutality bare (The Guardian)

I must admit I'd never heard of Ribera before but his art is certainly stunning, although as you say it's not particularly what I'd want hanging on my own walls.

Thanks for the pointer Tim. 

I've been to the neighbouring Horniman Museum but never to the Picture Gallery so if I get a chance I'll see if I can break my duck and view this exhibition. Re leafy Dulwich and the expensive residences, I once had a work colleague who lived in East Dulwich (i.e. not even Dulwich Village itself) and yet never missed an opportunity to proudly remind us all about that fact. So we took to referring to him as 'John from South Peckham' which put a cork in his pipe and drew a wry smile from him.

Ribera was a bit of a bad ass, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that he (and his main patrons) tended to veer aesthetically to lurid depictions of torture, murder, rape and other salacious subjects. He was the reputed ringleader of the infamous (in art circles) "Cabal of Naples" - a group of three artists who had sewn up the entire scene with regard to commissioning art of any description, and which enjoyed the protection of the Spanish authorities imposed on the kingdom at the time. The triumvirate used often very violent means to "dissuade" outsiders from sharing the fruits of this lucrative trade, one notorious incident being when an assistant of the artist Guido Reni was violently assaulted and left for dead by a gang who, it later transpired, had been employed by the triumvirate. Reni himself claimed to have foiled four attempts to poison him (he was in town hoping to get work in the chapel of Naples Cathedral - a very high profile commission that the Italian bishop had opened up to non-Spanish applicants). He and the other applicants hastily left town and Ribera, after holding a party in his house (second largest villa in Naples, only slightly smaller than that of the imposed Spanish "king"), then immediately increased the commission price to five times its market value. The pope got to hear about this and sent Ribera a letter of chastisement, after which the price then doubled again.

A nasty piece of work, though his own work was quite good - innovative in its depiction of flesh tones and use of hypothetically contradictory light sources which lent his paintings a distinctive style. His good stuff stopped about twenty years before he died - one suggested reason being that his health disimproved markedly as he got older, the more likely reason being that by then he had built up quite a studio of badly paid but competent Italian artists on contract who did most of the stuff from then on anyway.

When the Masianello uprising against Spanish rule broke out Ribera knew that he was certainly due to be one of the "first up against the wall" and did a runner, losing his estate and money in the process. Once outside the protection of the local Spanish Mafia all his crimes of extortion against church patrons came back to bite him in the bum and he died a broken man, holed up in a bordello because the good friars running the hospital next door refused to grant him a deathbed. Sordid paintings, sordid man, sordid death. Hard not to reflect on this when one looks at his stuff now.

That's interesting to learn, nordmann.  Actually the Ribera art made me think of a time in my youth when I went with some college friends to Catalonia*.  One one of the days out we went on a trip to a monastery in the mountains (Montserrat? - not sure after all these years).  I remember the guide saying something about a picture of the blinding of St Lucy and saying "is a very pretty picture" - maybe he meant a well-executed picture as English was not his first language.

* We had been going to go on a horse drawn caravan trip in Eire which were a bit of a thing in the 1970s but someone observed we could go to Spain for the same money or as near as d*mmit and have a better chance of warm weather.

Thanks for the links MM, I had read the review but not the article.  I believe that other reviews of the exhibition were equally positive about it.

regards

Tim

I have not been to the Horniman's museum Vizzer and my wife and I have said that we must make sure we get there.  This year I had to do an essay for my history degree on the Benin Bronzes and there are a number, although not as many as in the British Museum, at the Horniman's.

Concerning Peckham, about 10 years ago I got a call from my younger son, who was then a student nurse, at about 5am from the back of a police car.  The place he was renting with 4 other student nurses had been broken into by armed police.  This was not due to him but one of the other student nurses (all female) had a distinctly dodgy boyfriend with drugs and arms links.  

regards

Tim

I have been reading Payne and Bray on Ribera and they have a distinctly more positive view on him than Nordmann does and certainly do not consider his works as having been only due to paid assistances and refer to 'the myth of Ribera' as a violent artist,  "harsher than Jupiter".  

'Ribera was both an extraordinary painter and a prolific graphic artist. He produced a remarkable corpus of drawings as well as an important group of prints'.  

'Ribera pushed the boundaries of Caravaggesque realism towards a raw, visceral form of representation, especially in his images of raw violence'.  

Ribera when asked why he stayed in Naples, which had been Spanish controlled since 1442, said that "Spain is a merciful mother to foreigners but a most cruel stepmother to her own.  I find myself well admired and esteemed in this city".

 'Unlike Caravaggio, who murdered a man in Rome, or Agostino Tassie, who raped the painter Artemisia Gentileschi, there is no documentary evidence for Ribera as criminal or sadist.'

They note that Ribera was expelled from Parma due to the actions of local artists jealous of his success and, when established in Naples, used similar methods to keep out rivals.

Referring Ribera's earliest known depiction of the Martyrdom of St Bartholomew  'Although graphic in showing the in showing the physical side of martyrdom, the emotional tenor of the painting points towards the nobility of human sacrifice.'  

Concerning his production of these paintings of martyrdom, it is noted that the Catholic church, unlike Protestantism, believed that the faithful should pray to saints and that 'Ribera was competing with other painters to conceive images that would respond to the church's needs in a novel and inspiring way'.

Tim of Aclea wrote:

I have been reading Payne and Bray on Ribera and they have a distinctly more positive view on him than Nordmann does and certainly do not consider his works as having been only due to paid assistances and refer to 'the myth of Ribera' as a violent artist,  "harsher than Jupiter".  

'Ribera was both an extraordinary painter and a prolific graphic artist. He produced a remarkable corpus of drawings as well as an important group of prints'.  

'Ribera pushed the boundaries of Caravaggesque realism towards a raw, visceral form of representation, especially in his images of raw violence'.  

Ribera when asked why he stayed in Naples, which had been Spanish controlled since 1442, said that "Spain is a merciful mother to foreigners but a most cruel stepmother to her own.  I find myself well admired and esteemed in this city".

 'Unlike Caravaggio, who murdered a man in Rome, or Agostino Tassie, who raped the painter Artemisia Gentileschi, there is no documentary evidence for Ribera as criminal or sadist.'

They note that Ribera was expelled from Parma due to the actions of local artists jealous of his success and, when established in Naples, used similar methods to keep out rivals.

Referring Ribera's earliest known depiction of the Martyrdom of St Bartholomew  'Although graphic in showing the in showing the physical side of martyrdom, the emotional tenor of the painting points towards the nobility of human sacrifice.'  

Concerning his production of these paintings of martyrdom, it is noted that the Catholic church, unlike Protestantism, believed that the faithful should pray to saints and that 'Ribera was competing with other painters to conceive images that would respond to the church's needs in a novel and inspiring way'.

Tim,

had only a quick look on google at the paintings of Ribera.
https://goo.gl/Pjs5zR
I find that they all have such a reflection of inner conflict in their eyes...is that due to the character of the painter?
The only on first sight that I saw as an exception was this one:


Kind regards from Paul.

Hi Paul

I regret to say that I do not really know enough Ribera to respond with any certainty.  The monks of the Certosa di San Martino described him as 'a pious person, friendly with the religious, who always behaved with love and generosity towards the church.'

regards

Tim

Tim,

I thank you very much for your immediate and honest answer. In fact if asked, I wouldn't have known a reply either. It is nearly an existential question ...and now as I used that "expensif" word I will have to look what the real connotation is now

OOPS I had better chosen another word...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/existential
Perhaps best from the last link:

If you wrestle with big questions involving the meaning of life, you may be having an existential crisis.
And in my case: wrestle with a question involving the meaning of a situation, you may have an existential question?

Kind regards from Paul.