Ribalta, Francisco (1565-1628)

Spanish painter. He was active in Valencia from 1599. Around 1615 he developed a dramatic baroque style using extreme effects of light and shade (recalling Caravaggio), as in St Bernard Embracing Christ about 1620-28 (Prado, Madrid).

He worked in his youth in Madrid, where he seems to have been influenced by the paintings of such Italian Mannerists as Sebastiano del Piombo. After 1599 he lived and worked in Valencia, developing those ‘tenebrist’ effects of dark shadow, in which he was the first artist in Spain to express a sombre fervour (distinct from the spiritual exaltation of El Greco) appropriate to scenes of torture and martyrdom. He

has sometimes been supposed to have derived his style from the study of Caravaggio, but he had begun to cultivate it before Caravaggio started to paint. The Crucifixion (Hermitage), Christ embracing St Bernard (Prado), The Last Supper (Valencia), and The Vision of Father Simón (National Gallery, St Petersburg) are among his principal works. Ribera is said to have studied with him. Ribalta's son, Juan (1596-1628), was his pupil and collaborated with him.