Juan de la Abadía

JUAN DE LA ABADÍA (documented in Aragon in the last third of the 15th century).
"Saint John the Baptist preaching".
Oil on wood.
Measurements: 111 x 69 cm.
This scene represents Saint John the Baptist preaching in the Palestinian desert. According to the gospel legend, the inhabitants of Judea went to him to listen to him and to be baptised. John the Baptist is depicted with his usual tributes: he is barefoot and covers his body with the characteristic camel's skin. The disciples and listeners exchange impressions among themselves, showing a variety of attitudes to John's words.
Spanish painter belonging to the Hispano-Flemish style in Aragon. Documented in Huesca, where he opened his workshop between 1469 and 1498, the date of his death. From 1489 onwards, his son Juan de la Abadía "el Joven" collaborated with him in the workshop and the two of them even contracted the altarpieces of Lastanosa (1490) and San Pedro de Biescas (1493). Gudiol establishes the hypothesis of the Catalan training of Juan de la Abadía "the Elder" and of his collaboration on some altarpieces in Barcelona with Pedro García de Benabarre, with whom the style of Juan de la Abadía "the Elder" shows points of contact, as well as with that of Jaume Huguet. The best known period of his activity corresponds to the last two decades of his life, from which a greater number of documented works are preserved, among them the "Sorripas altarpieces" of El Salvador de Broto, Huesca (Museum of Zaragoza) or the "Santa Catalina" of the church of La Magdalena in Huesca (very scattered). The "Retablo de Santo Domingo" from the hermitage of Almudévar, Huesca (1490), which served as a starting point for Post in 1941 to designate this painter as Master of Almudévar, a few years before Ricardo del Arco made his identity known in 1945, also dates from those last years. From the earliest documented works in Huesca, such as the "Altarpiece of Santa Quiteria" in the church of the castle of Alquézar, we can see Juan de la Abadía's interest in representing the angular folds of the canvases, which are much harder in his later works, as is the more intense modelling. The painter shows the figures with a somewhat rough character, isolated and strongly modelled, with their realistic faces endowed with great expressiveness. His works are in the Museo del Prado.