Valdés Leal, Juan de Nisa

▪ Spanish artist

born May 4, 1622, Sevilla, Spain

died October 15, 1690, Sevilla

      painter, president of the Sevilla (Seville) Academy, and the major figure in Sevillian painting for many years, known for his dramatic, inventive, and often violent paintings.

      His father was Portuguese, and Valdés Leal was educated in Córdoba under the guidance of Antonio del Castillo and worked there until 1653. For the next few years he painted both in Córdoba and Sevilla. Moving to the latter city in 1656, he became in 1660 an original member of the Academy there (founded by Murillo), and later (1663–66) he served as its president. After the death of Murillo, Valdés Leal was the principal painter in Sevilla.

      In his early work Valdés Leal was markedly influenced by Francisco de Herrera the Elder (Herrera, Francisco, the Elder) and by Castillo. Paintings such as the St. Andrew of 1645 and La Vírgen de los Plateros are marked by their exotic colours, dramatic lighting, and vigorous brushstrokes. The paintings from Sevilla show even more clearly elements that prefigure the Spanish Rococo: hectic movement, immaterial forms, and brilliant colouring. Influenced in this period both by Sevilla painters and by Herrera the Younger and Madrid painters, Valdés Leal produced such works as the Vanitas (1660), the Finis Gloriae Mundi and the Triumph of Death (1660 and 1672), and Jesus Disputing with the Doctors (1686), all characterized by their macabre subject matter, dynamic energy, and theatrical violence. The violence of his subjects has often distracted attention from the inventiveness of his execution.

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