Juan de Ruela

Juan de Ruela (also Juan de Roelas or Juan de las Roelas , * around 1570 in Flanders , † April 23, 1625 in Olivares near Seville ) was a painter from Flanders . As far as his artistic career is documented, he worked in Spain, where he played an important role in the transition from Mannerism to Baroque .

Life

News of the life of Juan de Ruela is sparse and / or uncertain. Many previous assumptions about his biography, including his birthplace Seville, were refuted in 2000 when María Antonia Fernández del Hoyo, a Spanish art historian, showed that his early biographers confused the painter with a contemporary Seville-born Carmelite of the same name had. From notarial files she found out that the painter Juan de Ruela did not come from Seville, but from Flanders. With the clarification of the mix-up, a large part of the “knowledge” about the artist's biography was lost; the few references in the sources make it difficult to trace his life path.

It is known that Juan de Ruela was involved in the commemoration ceremonies after the death of King Philip II of Spain in Valladolid in 1598 and that he was involved in the design of his grave monument. He stayed in Valladolid until 1604 when he received a benefice or a letter of grace ( favor ) from Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares , or from his father, Enrique de Guzmán . At the ancestral home of this family, in the small town of Olivares near Seville, de Ruela painted several large altarpieces for churches in Olivares and for churches in and around Seville. Apparently de Ruela later moved from Andalusia to Madrid in the hope of getting a position as court painter there. When this effort failed, he returned to Olivares, where he died in 1625.

Art historical significance

Juan de Ruela is considered a key figure in the development of painting in Seville, especially in the years before the appearance of Zurbarán , Cano , Herrera , de Castillo , Murillo and Leal .

The last two artists named were influenced by de Ruela in many ways, both in terms of motifs , image composition and painting technique. The way in which he showed the naturalism of early Spanish baroque painting the way, for example, when he weaved scenes from everyday life into his paintings on biblical stories and legends of saints, was also fundamental. This connection between the religious and the everyday became a hallmark of the Sevillian school of painting and found its perfection in Murillo's work.

Major works (selection)

• An altar with the Holy Family , the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi in the University Church of Seville
• The Apostle James at the Battle of Clavijo in Seville Cathedral
• The death of St. Isidore in the Church of San Isidoro in Seville

• 

  The martyrdom of the apostle Andrew

• 

  Allegory of the Immaculate Conception

• 

  St. Benedict

• 

  Pentecost

literature

• María Antonia Fernández del Hoyo: Juan de Roelas pintor flamenco . In: Boletín del Museo Nacional de Escultura (Valladolid), vol. 2000, issue 4, pp. 25-27.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ María Antonia Fernández del Hoyo: Juan de Roelas pintor flamenco . In: Boletín del Museo Nacional de Escultura (Valladolid), year 2000, issue 4, pp. 25–27, here p. 26.
2. ↑ Enrique Valdivieso González: Juan de Roelas y la Pintura Sevillana de su Época . In: Juan de Roelas, h. 1570-1625 . Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía, Seville 2008, pp. 12-29. (Catalog of the exhibition in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla).

Web links

Commons : Juan de Roelas  - collection of images, videos and audio files