Ribera

Ribera, JUSEPE, called SPAGNOLETTO ('Little Spaniard'), was born at Jativa, near Valencia, on 12th January 1588, and died at Naples in 1656. He studied a few years with Francisco Ribalta at Valencia, then crossed the sea and continued his studies in Rome, Parma, and Modena. He settled in Naples, where he adopted the boldness of Caravaggio's style, and became the ablest painter among the naturalisti, or artists whose treatment of subjects was based on a vigorous, but generally coarse, representation of nature, in opposition to that formed on the study of conventional or academic rules. He attracted the attention of the viceroy, became court-painter, and was elected member of the Academy of St Luke at Rome in 1630. His realism is forcible and generally gloomy: he delighted to represent horrible and gruesome subjects, such as the martyrdoms of SS. Bartholomew, Januarius, and Lawrence, 'Prometheus,' &c. Salvador Rosa and Giordano were his most distinguished pupils. He executed several etchings marked by force and freedom.