Neapolitan Church Portraits Speak to the Earthly World

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Michael Kimmelman

Two images of portraits by Jusepe de Ribera from the church of the Certosa di San Martino.

ITALY—The portraits of patriarchs and prophets by Jusepe de Ribera in the church of the Certosa di San Martino are tucked into a dozen or so tight triangular spaces above the arches. Dark and high overhead, they’re easily overlooked. From Valencia, Ribera settled here while the Spanish viceroys ruled, a star in demand, painting his prophets and patriarchs during the 1630s and ’40s. They are expressions of the Spanish Counter-Reformation view of art: the more realistic, the more spiritual. The Baroque art and architecture that the viceroys bankrolled gave license to a peculiar sort of cultural insurrection: an opulence of expression, specifically Neapolitan, proudly courting bad taste, which thumbed its nose at Spanish and Roman proprieties. [link]