José de Ribera

JOSÉ DE RIBERA (Xátiva, Valencia, 1591 - Naples, 1652).
"The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Work exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia.
Work reproduced in: Spinosa, N. Ribera. The complete work. Foundation of Hispanic art. Madrid 2008 cat. C12; Pascual Chenel, A and in the catalog "Masters of the Spanish Baroque, Granados Collection, Unpublished Work. Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia. 2020-2021. p. 64.
It presents restorations and damages caused by xylophages.
It has a 19th century frame.
Measurements: 172 x 135 cm; 204 x 166 cm (frame).
A prolix painter, one of the constants in his production is the abundance of themes of saints, martyrs and hermits, among which San Sebastian occupies a prominent place. He repeated this theme on numerous occasions in different versions and compositions and even in autograph replicas of the same composition, as is the case here and a common practice in the Valencian painter. Thus, in Ribera's artistic production (both in painting and drawing) there is a large number of representations of the Roman martyr, either in his traditional iconography at the moment of the asaeteamiento or, as is the case, in the less frequent one that depicts the moment immediately after the torment. Ribera's style is framed within an intense and powerful naturalistic energy of Caravaggesque style, which will evolve throughout his career (the bibliography on Ribera is huge and it is not the case to relate it here; we mention only by way of example the catalog the important exhibition by Pérez Sánchez and Spinosa, 1992; Spinosa, 2008; Milícua and Portús, 2011; Finaldi, 2016; in these last two publications the previous bibliography and the latest research on the painter are collected). These aesthetic and plastic values can be appreciated in the canvas of the Granados Collection, of careful composition and studied foreshortening, with a masterful study of the nude of classicist style, but which serves the artist as an excellent means to convey feeling and pious emotion. Hence the careful illumination directed towards the main subject, and the cerulean tone that confers the contorted body of the saint, still tied to the tree, to indicate in this way the lividity of the body, also underlined by the very marked foreshortening of the cadaverous heaviness. Meanwhile, both Saint Irene and her maid appear submerged in shadow, from which their faces emerge, creating a subtle play of light. With all this he manages to create an effect of restrained drama. As is logical, this obvious one must be placed in direct connection with other autograph replicas of identical composition of which, in addition, numerous copies are known, as well as other versions of the same theme and even preparatory drawings. Among the former, it is obvious to mention the painting in the Museo de Bellas Artes of Valencia, of analogous quality to the one in the Granados Collection. Of this one, there are many scattered copies, such as the one in a private collection in Parma, the one in the church of Saints Severino and Sosio in Naples, and several others in various museums and private collections. The same iconography, although with a slightly different composition and treatment, can be seen, for example, in the canvases of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the spectacular one in the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao. The San Sebastianes in their most common iconography are, as we have said, very abundant in Ribera's pictorial production. We will point out by way of example the masterful one for the Collegiate Church of Osuna, corresponding to his first stage, and the one in the Prado Museum, much later, in which we can see the stylistic evolution of the artist from the decade of the 30's. As for the preparatory drawings, there are several of this subject among his graphic production, but we must mention the fundamental one in San Sebastian seated and tied to a tree, of the William Lowe Bryan Memorial, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, (fig.1), in which the saint's forced posture is very similar.

Sebastian was of Gallic origin, born in Narbonne and, according to tradition, raised in Milan. He became a trusted man of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian who, unaware of his Christian faith, put him in charge of the first cohort of Rome, the Praetorian Guard, whose main mission was to escort the emperors. From his privileged position he was dedicated to exhort the arrested and persecuted Christians to strengthen their faith and prevent them from denying it. Such is the case of the twins Marcus and Marcellianus who were condemned to death for professing the Christian religion. When they were about to be beheaded, ready to assume the martyrdom with dignity, their parents and wives appeared and begged them to renounce Christianity to save their lives. At that moment, St. Sebastian, who was among those who witnessed the pathetic scene, and seeing that the strength of the brothers was beginning to waver, came out of the crowd and addressed to those present a speech with which he managed to restore their courage and desire to remain faithful to Christianity, assuming without fear the torments of their own martyrdom. After finishing the sermon, a miracle occurred whereby the jailer's wife, who was mute from birth, suddenly regained her speech, which led to her immediate conversion and the release of the brothers by the jailer. Such was the persuasive force of St. Sebastian's divinely inspired words that even the parents and wives of Marcus and Marcellianus, as well as many of those present, were also converted to Christianity; the miracle was worked again in the father of the twins who, as soon as he was baptized, was cured of a serious ailment that afflicted him. After a whole series of miracles, conversions and martyrdoms of other Christians, Sebastian was denounced to the emperor. Diocletian was very offended by the betrayal of his friend and ordered his own companions to take him to the field of Mars, tie him to a tree and roast him to death. The hagiographic tradition tells us that the soldiers were so furious with Sebastian that they shot him with so many arrows that they turned his body into a kind of hedgehog. Believing him already dead, they went away and left the saint badly wounded, but still alive. Once the soldiers had left, that same night Saint Irene untied him, took him home and cured his wounds assisted by her maid Lucina; a passage that is the one immortalized in the canvas. When he recovered, Sebastian returned to the imperial palace to reproach the emperor for his persecution of the Christians. Diocletian, enraged, ordered him to be imprisoned again and ordered him to be beaten until he was sure of his death and then his corpse was thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, so that the Christians could not recover his remains, thus preventing them from honoring him and worshiping his relics. This was done, but the saint appeared to Santa Lucia to indicate the exact location of his body, which was recovered and buried in the catacombs that bear his name on the Appian Way. Ribera was born in Xátiva in 1591, but nothing is known about his early Valencian education. Nor are the exact reasons why he left his hometown to travel to Rome at a very young age, where we know that he was already in 1606. The possibility has been raised that there were relatives in the Eternal City (Papi, 2011, pp. 31-59). The fact is that in 1612 he was already practicing as a painter on his own account in Rome and fully immersed in the social and artistic life of the city. Between 1610-1611 he is also known to have been in Parma where he received his first important commissions. In 1616 he moved to Naples where he developed a fruitful career, especially since the viceroy Osuna was amazed with his quality and commissioned him important works that would make him the most important artistic personality of the city. From that moment on, successive viceroys would become his clients and he would paint for them in abundance, as well as other diverse commissions both inside and outside Naples.