Juan de Arellano

JUAN DE ARELLANO (Santorcaz, 1614-Madrid, 1676).
"Flower vase".
Oil on canvas.
Attached study of Don Ismael Gutiérrez Pastor (Doctor in art history from the Autonomous University of Madrid).
Signed in the lower right corner.
Size: 41 x 34 cm; 54 x 81 cm (frame).
The faint brushstrokes that form the transparent vase, the delicacy of the blue flower that has lost its splendour and falls on its weight, are examples of the mastery of the author of this work. Juan de Arellano was an artist who specialised mainly in flower paintings, achieving, as we can see here, great mastery in composing sensual bouquets with a contrasting palette in a language fully in keeping with the Spanish Baroque. After an initial period devoted to religious painting, he decided to abandon the figure to specialise in the floral genre. In this respect, it is necessary to transcribe the response that the biographer and theoretician. Palomino, when asked about his almost exclusive dedication to flower painting, said: "Because I work less and earn more". Palomino also mentions that he may have spent time in Alcalá de Henares before coming to Madrid to work in the workshop of Juan de Solís. Arellano must have perceived the success that flower painting could have at court, where the market for flower painting enthusiasts was largely supplied by imports. In his works we can sense the overcoming of the tradition of Juan van der Hamen - continued by his pupil Antonio Ponce, in a more formal and rigid manner - transmuted in a more complicated Baroque direction. His first influences came from Flemish examples, especially Daniel Seghers, thanks to which he was able to endow his works with a meticulous and precious technique that he always retained. He also copied extensively the works of the Roman Mario Nuzzi, known as Mario dei Fiori, one of the best definers of the genre and well known in Spain. From him he took a more lively formulation in his strokes that led him in the profuse and exuberant direction already mentioned. We know that he opened a shop in the centre of Madrid: as early as 1646 he had one in Calle de Atocha. It became one of the most important in the capital, where his works were known and acquired by a large number of noblemen, as is recorded in the abundant inventories that have been preserved. In addition to flower paintings, her studio also produced other genres such as still lifes, portraits, landscapes, allegorical and religious themes. He is known to have collaborated with other artists who painted the figures that Arellano surrounded with his floral compositions, such as Francisco Camilo and Mateo Cerezo. Among his disciples is his son José, who repeated his father's models with a less refined technique that reveals a certain dryness and a more muted chromaticism. His son-in-law Bartolomé Pérez de la Dehesa continued his still lifes of flowers and inherited his sensual interpretation of nature by applying it to more tranquil compositions. In technique, however, he is closer to the Italian painters. The Museo del Prado houses up to eleven canvases by Juan de Arellano. Most of them come from the royal collections, as well as from the bequest of Xavier Laffite and the donation of the widowed Countess of Moriles. Of the works in the Prado, Still Life with Fruit is an exception to the artist's speciality, flower painting.