Euclid
About the painting
Emerging from deep shadows behind a table, a solemn individual stands displaying a well-worn book with various geometric figures, pseudo-Greek characters, and an imaginary script. Jusepe de Ribera paid considerable attention to the man's facial details, from the unkempt beard to the distinctive creases of his high forehead and the irregular folds of the lids above his dark, penetrating eyes. He depicted the wise man with tattered clothes and blackened, grimy fingers to emphasize the subject's devotion to intellectual, rather than material, pursuits. The presence of mathematical diagrams in the illegible book reveal the figure's identity as Euclid, a prominent mathematician from antiquity, best known for his treatise on geometry, the *Elements* . Portraits of wise men were very popular in the 1600s, when there was a revived interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Rather than portraying the subject as a refined and noble figure, Ribera depicted him as an individual tried by a life of hardship, imbued with the force of a living personality.
Getty Museum
Scheda
Nel frattempo, nella vita di Jusepe de Ribera
Tutta la vita1616–1656 · Luogo di lavoro
Naples
late 1620s
Recognised as Naples's leading painter
Ribera's career picks up in the late 1620s, and he is accepted as the leading painter in Naples thereafter; he runs a workshop with many pupils, among them Francesco Fracanzano, Luca Giordano, Bartolomeo Passante and Hendrick de Somer.
1630
Velázquez visits Ribera in Naples
In 1630 Diego Velázquez visits Ribera in Naples — evidence of how well known the master was in his homeland.
1630s
The palette brightens: from tenebrism to colour
In the 1630s Ribera's colour range changes under the influence of Anthony van Dyck, Guido Reni and others: stark tenebrism gives way to more diffused light.
