Ribalta, Francisco

(1564-1628)

   Spanish painter from the Catalán region. Ribalta traveled to Madrid in 1581 to receive his training and perhaps to try to obtain a post as court painter. This was not to be since Philip II died in 1598. However, while in Madrid, Ribalta had the opportunity to study the works of Titian in the royal collection. He left Madrid and settled in Valencia where Archbishop Juan de Ribera, who was directing the Counter-Reformation in the region, had a splendid collection of paintings and a keen interest in art. Among the works in his collection figured some by El Greco, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Juan Sánchez Cotán, Giovanni Baglione, as well as a copy of Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Peter in the Cerasi Chapel, Rome (1600). This last allowed Ribalta to become well acquainted with Caravaggism, which he eventually adopted as his own. Archbishop Ribera gave Ribalta commissions, including the altarpiece for the College of Corpus Christi, which depicts the Last Supper (1606). He also created a series of paintings on the life of St. James for the church dedicated to the saint in Algemesí (1603-1606). These works were rendered utilizing the Mannerist style Ribalta learned during a trip to Rome. By c. 1620, however, he suddenly changed to Caravaggism, creating some of his most admired works, among them St. Bernard Embracing Christ (c. 1625; Madrid, Prado), the depiction of a vision experienced by the saint who founded the Cistercian Order and who was deeply devoted to Christ. The work presents tenebristic lighting with figures pushed close to the fore-ground and set against the undefined, dark background from which they emerge. Ribalta's Caravaggism, and particularly its deep emotionalism and theatrical lighting effects, proved to be a major force in the development of Spanish Baroque art, and particularly that of Francisco de Zurbarán and Jusepe de Ribera.