Antonio del Castillo

ANTONIO DEL CASTILLO Y SAAVEDRA (Córdoba, 1616 - 1668).
"San Buenaventura".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Work exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia.
Work reproduced in the catalog "Masters of Spanish Baroque, Granados Collection, Unpublished Work. Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia. 2020-2021. p. 97.
Bibliography: Palencia Cerezo, José María and Pascual Chenel, Álvaro (dirs.). Masters of the Spanish Baroque. Granados Collection. Unpublished works. Murcia: Museo de Bellas Artes, 2020, pp. 94-96, cat. no. 23.
Repainting and restorations on the pictorial surface.
Presents sealing wax seal on the back.
Measurements: 83 x 65 cm; 95 x 77 cm (frame).
The work that represents San Buenaventura, has a sober composition ascribed to the stylistic patterns of the time and the genre. The Saint is portrayed facing the viewer in the central area and with an elongated bust as usual. His gaze is directed towards the viewer, without paying attention to the book and the pen he holds in his hands. The depth of his gaze added to the truthfulness of the old face and the monumentality of the protagonist make up a portrait that transcends the mere religious representation in favor of a portrait that has a great psychological charge. The stylistic characteristics of the piece indicate that it may be a work produced in a period of maturity of the artist, following the model of the Saint Paul of the Museum of Fine Arts of Cordoba. Because of the chromatism and vibration of his brushstrokes, we believe that it should be more directly related to Castillo's canvas entitled San Francisco y Santo Domingo en el capítulo de las esteras, in the collection of the Marquesa de Santa Cruz in Madrid, which was made known by Nancarrow Taggard and Navarrete Prieto in 2004 (see Nancarrow and Navarrete, 2004, pp.316-317). It is one of his lesser known "narrative paintings", and constitutes a true compendium of the most frequent types and faces in his work, which he normally used in different positions to set the same scene. On the right of the
three of them appear, from left to right, recognized by these authors as Brother Elias, the Bishop of Viterbo and Cardinal Ugolino, who are known to have attended the Franciscan chapter held in Assisi in 1221 that the painting celebrates. Cardinal Ugolino's face is very similar to the one shown in this St. Bonaventure, as his bushy beard denotes, although he is wearing a capelet, which makes it difficult to appreciate the features of his face in detail.
Antonio Castillo is the painter considered the father of the Cordovan school, he was also a polychromator and designer of architectural, decorative and goldsmith projects. He was the son of Agustín del Castillo, a little known painter from Llerena (Extremadura) whom Palomino describes as "an excellent painter". It is also believed that he may have trained as a polychromator in Calderón's workshop. However, he was orphaned when he was only ten years old, in 1626, and went on to develop his training in the workshop of another painter of whom we have no news, Ignacio Aedo Calderón. Although there is no real evidence of this, it is believed that he may have arrived in Seville, where, according to Palomino, he entered Zurbarán's workshop. This has been corroborated by the stylistic influence of the master from Extremadura that historians have seen in Castillo's work. However, in 1635 he was back in his native Cordoba, where he married and settled permanently, to finally become without discussion the most important artist of the city. His fame and quality earned him important commissions, including religious altarpieces, portraits and medium-sized series. He was also the teacher of outstanding Cordovan painters of the following generation, such as Juan de Alfaro y Gámez. Regarding his language, Antonio del Castillo did not develop an evident evolution in his work, although towards the end of his life a more softened language can be appreciated, and he kept away from the baroque novelties of other contemporary painters. However, like the rest of his contemporaries, he was seduced by the novelty of Murillo's work, and in his last years he would introduce the Venetian chromatic softness of the Sevillian master.