Juan Sánchez Cotán

Juan Sánchez Cotán, still life with game, vegetables and fruits , 68 × 89 cm, oil on canvas, 1602, Museo del Prado in Madrid .

Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber , 69 × 85 cm, oil on canvas, 1602, San Diego Museum of Art .

Juan Sánchez Cotán (born June 25, 1560 in Orgaz near Toledo , † September 8, 1627 in Granada ) was a Spanish Baroque painter . He was one of the most important still life painters in Spain, his picture Still life with game, vegetables and fruits from 1602 is the first traditional Spanish still life. With the characteristic stone niche with the natural products stored in it, the hanging fruits and the game, he shaped a type for the early Spanish still life ( bodegón ) that influenced other artists. He had painted the niches in advance and then filled them up with the objects.

Sánchez Cotán was probably a friend or student of Blas de Prado . He lived in Toledo and made history paintings and portraits . At the turn of the century he began to make still lifes, probably based on ancient models from Roman mosaics. On August 10, 1603 he gave up his studio and moved to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria de El Paular in Rascafría . There he painted other religious histories. In 1612 he was sent to the Cartuja de Granada monastery in Granada and decided to become a monk . The following year he entered the monastery community as a brother. He continued painting in the monastery. Despite his limited life in the monastery, Sánchez Cotán worked on many Spanish painters of the early 17th century. Many of the subsequent still life painters referred to him and his type of stone niche. Juan van der Hamen y León also quoted him by copying individual fruits in his pictures.

literature

• Emilio Orozco Díaz: El pintor fray Juan Sánchez Cotán . Universidad de Granada, 1993. ISBN 9788433817600 .
• Ira Oppermann: The Spanish Still Life in the 17th Century. From the windowless room to the light-flooded landscape . Reimer, Berlin 2007. ISBN 978-3-496-01368-6 .
• Felix Scheffler: The Spanish Still Life of the 17th Century: Theory, Genesis and Development of a New Genre . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2000. ISBN 978-3-89354-515-5 .
• William B. Jordan : Juan van der Hamen y León & The Court of Madrid . Yale University Press, New Haven 2005. ISBN 0-300-11318-8 .
• Jutta Held: Renunciation and ceremonial. On the still lifes by Sanchez-Cotán and van der Hamen , in: Stilleben in Europa , exhibition catalog Münster 1997, pp. 382–390.

Web links

Commons : Juan Sánchez Cotán  - collection of images, videos and audio files