José de Ribera

JOSÉ DE RIBERA (Xátiva, Valencia, 1591 - Naples, 1652).
"Ecce homo".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Attached report by Nicola Spinosa.
It presents restorations.
It has a frame adapted from the XVII century in ebonised wood.
Measurements: 88 x 65 cm; 111 x 89 cm (frame).
This work shows the figure of Christ crowned with thorns and ironically presented to the people of Jerusalem as king of the Jews (Ecce Homo, Behold the man). The work has been attributed to Ribera by the expert Nicola Spinosa, curator of the Polo Museale Napoletano and director of the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, due to technical characteristics such as the strong contrast of light and shade intended to define forms and volumes, particularly expressive in the treatment of the red cloak that covers his hips and thorax, and in the skin already bruised by his final sufferings and the somatic characteristics in the gaze marked by a restrained and very human sadness. This Ecce Homo can be dated a few years after the young Ribera's final move to Naples in mid-1616. The painting in question, with stylistic results still evident and markedly Caravaggesque in origin, continues, with the composition inverted and with some variations in the arrangement of the hands tied with a rope, from the Ecce Homo by the artist which is kept in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, coming from the Casa de la Compañía de Jesús in Toledo, where it was seen by Ponz in the mid-18th century, dated by modern and contemporary critics on a stylistic basis immediately after 1620 and before 1624.
From its subject matter and style we can situate this painting within the Neapolitan school of the 17th century around the figure of José de Ribera, a key painter belonging to the generation of the great masters of the Golden Age, trained in Italy as a self-taught artist. He first came into contact with naturalism when he arrived in Rome in 1615, where he came into contact with the Nordic Caravaggists, from whom he adopted the smooth, hurried technique, ugliness and rigorous drawing that shaped his style during his Roman period. However, in 1616 he moved to Naples and settled there permanently. In Naples Ribera became the leader of the group of Neapolitan naturalists and an important circle of painters grew up around him. Despite his stay in Italy, Ribera sent numerous works to Spain, and his language would be key to the formation of the Baroque in our country. His work would bring tenebrism and, later, the full Baroque, long before the latter arrived directly in Spain, thus influencing the new generations of painters. On the other hand, once his Roman period was over, his painting was characterised by a very loose, Venetian-influenced brushstroke, which also marked the work of his followers. Thus, Ribera's school developed a style of dramatic, contrasting, clearly tenebrist lighting, which is nevertheless tinged by a Venetian brushstroke that is impastoed and fluid. Thus, here we see an artificial, directed spotlight that penetrates the scene from the upper right corner and directly illuminates the saint's face and hands, leaving the rest in semi-darkness. And we also find that totally modern brushstroke that models the saint by means of the light, that touch of pasty, expressive brushwork that the artist learned directly from Ribera's work.