Isidoro Francisco Rodriguez

ISIDORO FRANCISCO RODRÍGUEZ DE RIBERA (c.1659, after 1731) .
"Saint Nicholas of Bari".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents Repainting and restorations on the pictorial surface.
It has inscription on the back.
Measurements: 152,5 x 118,5 cm.
Saint Nicholas, also known as Saint Nicholas of Myra in the East, or Saint Nicholas of Bari in the West, was a bishop of the IV century. He was born in Patara, in the region of Lycia (now within the territory of Turkey), into a wealthy Christian family, and already as a child he stood out for his pious and generous character. After the death of his parents, Nicholas inherited a large fortune, which he put at the service of the needy. He then went to live in Myra, in Anatolia, where he was consecrated bishop. He was imprisoned by Emperor Licinius, and later freed by Constantine, and participated in the Council of Nicaea. An outstanding orator, he was always a defender of the weak against the powerful, a task in which, despite his advanced age, he acted with courage and vigor. Many miracles are attributed to St. Nicholas, and this copper refers specifically to one of them: the resurrection of three children who had been sacrificed to feed the customers of an innkeeper.
Spanish Baroque painting is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and its form of expression arose from the people and the deepest feelings that nestled in it. With the economy of the State broken, the nobility in decline and the high clergy burdened with heavy taxes, it was the monasteries, the parishes and the confraternities of clerics and laymen who promoted its development, and the works were sometimes financed by popular subscription. Painting was thus forced to capture the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when the Counter-Reformation doctrine demanded from art a realistic language so that the faithful would understand and identify with what was represented, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content to increase the fervor and devotion of the people. The religious subject is, therefore, the preferred theme of Spanish sculpture of this period, which in the first decades of the century began with a priority interest in capturing the natural, to progressively intensify throughout the century the expression of expressive values.