Christ Embracing St Bernard

religious

The first Spanish painter in the 17th century to abandon Mannerism for the new realistic style was Francisco Ribalta, a Catalan who, after receiving his early training in Toledo spent the years of his maturity in Valencia. It is not known whether Ribalta was aquainted with the work of Caravaggio or whether he arrived independently at results parallel to those achieved by the Italian Tenebrists. At all events, his style is remarkable for its virile naturalism.

Loading map…

About the Artist

Francisco Ribalta

1565 – 1628

Spanish painter. He was probably trained at the Escorial and during most of the 1580s and 1590s he worked in Madrid. His earlier paintings are Mannerist in character, notably his first known work, The Nailing to the Cross (Hermitage, St Petersburg, 1582). By 1599 he was settled in Valencia and there his style became much more sombre and naturalistic. According to Palomino, Ribalta had studied in Italy and he is known to have made a copy of Caravaggio 's Martyrdom of St Peter, but his late tenebrist style may have been influenced more by Ribera than by direct knowledge of painting in Rome. In their turn, Ribalta's dramatically lit and powerfully austere mature works ( Christ Embracing St Bernard, Prado, Madrid) had considerable influence on Spanish painting, notably on Zurbarán. His son Juan (1596/7-1628) was also an able painter in the Caravaggesque manner, but died young.

View all works →