Jusepe De Ribera: The Beauty In Suffering, In Decaying Bodies
In Wrinkles And Weathered Skin. Matter Becomes Spirit
Jusepe de Ribera, the harrowing Spanish master of chiaroscuro, pierced through the transient veil of flesh into the realm of timeless souls. His unflinching paintbrush rendered beggars and saints as they were, stripping bare the illusion of beauty. Beyond the horror vacui of wrinkles and deformities, he revealed an inner light shining all the brighter against mortality’s darkness.
His aged portraits are maps of lives furrowed by suffering. Skin shrinks against bone, creepers of cellulite and varicose veins clutch at atrophied limbs. Liver spots, skin tags and moles speckle faces leached of vitality. These marks of decay evoke the impermanence of all that is dear in life — beauty, strength, health. The icy caress of death lurks under thinning hair and behind vacant stares.
Yet crumbling ruins often shelter the most unexpected treasures. Through his unsparing eye, Ribera…
