Alejandro Loarte

ALEJANDRO DE LOARTE (1598/1599 - Toledo, 1626).
"Still life of meat".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents Repainting and restorations in the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 76 x 111 cm; 92 x 127 cm (frame).
Baroque still life composed by animals and vegetables. Magnificently worked elements, with detail and attention to the qualities. The elements that make up the still life are placed on two levels, in a typically baroque zigzag composition, dynamic despite the relatively simple structure of the space. The dynamism is enhanced by the use of bright, metallic colors, such as the green of the lettuce or the redness of the meat. These colors, in turn, cause a great contrast with the rest of the tenebrist tonality of the canvas. The light treatment of this work reflects the painter's interest in an incipient chiaroscuro, an example of the international mannerism of the beginning of the century, in which the author must have been trained.
There is very little biographical information available and most of the dates of his life are approximations. We do know that his father, a painter named Jerónimo de Loarte, was probably his first teacher and survived him. At his death, he was in charge of a prestigious studio in Madrid and, shortly before his death in Toledo, he named the artist Pedro Orrente as his executor. His religious paintings varied in quality; some were even copies. His style is closely related to that of Luis Tristán, and Orrente's influence is evident. A large canvas of "St. Bernard with his monks", in the convent of the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, once believed to be the work of Francisco Pacheco, has been reattributed to him. Still lifes make up the bulk of his work and he seems to have developed his style from the works of Juan Sánchez Cotán, but with a lighter touch that seems to follow Venetian examples. Many of them also contain human figures; in the style of Bartolomeo Passerotti. His composition is very symmetrical and somewhat crowded.