If the spelling of his first name regularly differs according to biographers and notices – José here, Jusepe there – it is because Ribera, born near Valencia in 1591, left Spain early to spend his entire career in Italy, and more particularly in Naples, for which its name has become the perfect metonym, so that many Neapolitan churches jealously house major works of the « Spanish »the “little Spaniard”. The Petit Palais in Paris is hosting, until February 23, 2025, its first retrospective in France.
The conversion to Caravaggio
Singularly, when Ribera settled in Rome, around 1605-1606, Caravaggio had just left the papal city for Naples. Did the two men cross paths? Nothing allows us to establish this with certainty, especially since the Caravaggio star is shooting in the night of the world. No matter: Ribera, from his association with the masterpieces of his elder, converted to darkness and ardor, “to darkness and light”to paraphrase the title of the retrospective finally dedicated to him at the Petit Palais in Paris.
Jusepe de Ribera, The Judgment of Solomon, 1609-1610, oil on canvas, 153×201 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome. © Galleria Borghese
Composing scenes of raw realism, using live models, delving into darkness, even ugliness, ridding beauty of the trappings of prettiness, adopting a bold frontality, Ribera continues the Caravaggesque lesson, attentive to chiaroscuro and blind spots, to beggars, to the blind, to drunkards and club feet. The world, with its margins and its marginals, enters majestically into this centrifugal painting, like a vortex.
A first in France
Distinguishing the Roman stay from the Neapolitan period, the exhibition refuses the simple anthological route to offer a scholarly reflection on Ribera’s work. Rich in around a hundred pieces, from the most prestigious French and international institutions, this first French retrospective confronts the artist’s sacred and profane painting, as well as his remarkable graphic production. Ample and pioneering, with attributions recently added to Ribera’s Roman corpus, this decisive exhibition stands out for its great scientific rigor. An event, in short.
Caravaggio’s heir
In 1616, having developed a remarkable and noted syntax, which already marked him as one of the most important heirs of Caravaggio, Ribera settled in Naples, then Spanish territory. Receiving commissions for the collegiate church of Osuna, near Seville, or for the church of the Trinity delle Monache, in Naples, the painter delivered unforgettable works which, deeply spiritual (Saint Jerome and the angel of judgment1626) or willingly strange (The Bearded Woman1631), attest to its formal ease and iconographic flexibility.
Joseph de Ribera, St. Jerome and the Angel of the Last Judgment, 1626, oil on canvas, 262×164 cm, Museum and Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples. © Mountaintop Museum & Royal Forest
In Naples, which loves nothing but grace, excess and virtuosity, Ribera’s painting works miracles and arouses desire. From the prestigious collection of Prince Andrea d’Avalos, the canvas Apollo and Marsyasexecuted in 1637, betrays the artist’s ability to regenerate a genre – mythological -, to incorporate various influences – notably Venetian – and to lighten his palette, in accordance with a late inflection. For this large painting (182 x 232 cm), Ribera borrows from Metamorphoses of Ovid an eminently dramatic subject: for having recovered the aulos of Athena, a wind instrument from which the goddess had separated on the pretext that it distorted her face, the satyr Marsyas became a captivating musician, whose pride was soon punished by Apollo who, at the end of a cruel joust, punished the impudent by flaying him alive.
Jusepe de Ribera, Apollon et Marsyas, 1637, Naples, Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, © Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples
But, to the asphyxiated tenebrism of the beginnings, Ribera here adds air and light, clarity and color. Edifying, this scene, designed under the triple aegis of Caravaggio, Michelangelo and Titian, is a baroque summit, irresistibly remembered by Bernini, Peter Paul Rubens and Luca Giordano. He drew from this episode a similar interpretation, including literally, since today it rubs shoulders with that of Ribera, given to the Italian State in 1862, at the heart of the permanent collections of the Capodimonte museum, in Naples. This picture rail, which deserves to be seen once in a lifetime, serves as a demonstration: the Spanish is a prodigious artist and a formidable passer.
Ribera, Darkness and Light
