Luis de la Cruz
Luis de la Cruz (born June 21, 1776 in Puerto de la Cruz , Tenerife , † July 20, 1853 in Antequera ; full name Luis Gonzaga Paulino de la Cruz y Ríos ) was a Spanish painter .
Life
Luis de la Cruz was born the son of Juana Nepomuceno Ríos and the painter and wood sculptor Manuel de la Cruz on June 21, 1776 in Puerto de la Cruz. Luis de la Cruz received his first artistic training from his father. In 1784 he began a three-year apprenticeship with the painter Juan de Miranda. From 1795 to 1810 he ran his own studio in Puerto de la Cruz . On January 14, 1800 Luis de la Cruz was appointed lieutenant of the provincial militia in the artillery company in Puerto de la Cruz. Between 1801 and 1808 he took part in various military missions in the Canary Islands.
In 1808 he was elected mayor of Puerto de la Cruz . From 1811 to 1815 Luis de la Cruz ran a painting studio in La Laguna . In 1813 he became regimental commander of the militia regiment in Güímar . Because of his move to Madrid, Luis de la Cruz closed his studio in La Laguna in 1815 and ended his active career as a militia officer.
On January 25, 1816, he was appointed court painter by King Ferdinand VII . Despite multiple applications, he never received a salary for this office. Pope Pius VII awarded Luis de la Cruz with the dignity of Knight of the Golden Spur in 1818 .
When he became aware of his affiliation with a group of conspirators, for which the government's policy was too liberal, Luis de la Cruz saw himself forced to go into exile in France in 1823. In the same year he came back to Madrid with the French troops of the Holy Alliance , the Cien Mil Hijos de San Luis ( Hundred Thousand Sons of St. Louis ) requested by King Ferdinand VII .
Despite his ten-year absence from Tenerife, King Ferdinand VII awarded him the rank of captain of the Provincial Militia of the Canary Islands in 1825.
King Charles X of France made Luis de la Cruz Knight of the Order of Saint Michael on October 9, 1825 .
From the end of 1827 Luis de la Cruz took over formally - and at times actually - various paid offices at the customs and port administration of Seville . His tenure in Seville, which lasted around six years, was repeatedly interrupted by appointments to Madrid, so that he did not actually hold office for four years.
In 1833, King Ferdinand VII awarded Luis de la Cruz the Order of Isabella the Catholic and made him his honorary secretary. The appointment as honorary secretary was repeated in 1834, after the death of King Ferdinand VII, by the regent Doña María Cristina .
In 1934 Luis de la Cruz took up a paid post at the Customs and Port Administration of Cádiz , from which he took a leave of absence in 1835 in order not to exercise it again later.
In 1838, Queen Isabella II allowed him to settle in Malaga . In 1840 he was granted a pension of 8,000 reales .
A planned return to Puerto de la Cruz to accept a chair set up for him at the Academia de San Miguel was prevented by his death on July 20, 1853 in Antequera .
Works
Only a few religious pictures of Luis de la Cruz - from his time in the Canary Islands - have survived. Of importance are four paintings in the Altar del Cristo del Gran Poder in the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia in Puerto de la Cruz .
The artistic work of Luis de la Cruz consists almost exclusively of portraits , as oil paintings in representative sizes and as miniatures to be embedded in pieces of jewelry. The people portrayed up to his move to the mainland in 1815 come from the aristocracy, the clergy and the wealthy merchant class of Tenerife. In the period after 1815 Luis de la Cruz primarily portrayed the royal family (eleven portraits of Ferdinand VII have survived) and a few other people at the court.
Engravings were made from some of the paintings while Luis de la Cruz was still alive.
literature
- Antonio Rumeu de Armas: Luis de la Cruz y Ríos , Viceconsejería de Cultura y Deportes, Islas Canarias, 1997 ISBN 84-7947-219-7
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cruz, Luis de la |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cruz y Rios, Luis Gonzaga Paulino de la (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 21, 1776 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Puerto de la Cruz |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 20, 1853 |
| Place of death | Antequera |