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RIBERA, Jose or Jusepe, de (known as Lo SPAGNOLETTO or "little Spaniard"), Spanish painter born in Jativa, near Valencia, Spain, 1591 (baptized Feb. 17); and died in Naples, Italy, Sept. 5, 1652. The flourishing of painting in Valencia apparently enticed young Ribera out of the university and into the studio of Francisco de Ribalta. He eventually left Valencia, spent some time in Rome, and settled in Naples, a center of Hispanic culture, spending some 40 years in Italy. In Rome he studied the works of Raphael and the Carracci family. He probably visited Parma and Modena and copied the paintings of Correggio. In Naples, it was the great mannerist, Il Caravaggio, however, who influenced him most.

Although a Spaniard who never forgot entirely the influence of Ribalta, Ribera has been ranked as one of the most pronounced representatives of the naturalistic painters of Naples. In coloring, chiaroscuro, and anatomical detail he outranks many of the Neapolitan artists. He generally chose gloomy, austere, or even ugly subjects for his powerful brush, and these he treated with extravagance and power of fancy which dramatized and deepened their inherent emotional content. Pity and horror are incited by The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1630), his huge companion pieces Tityus and Ixion (1632), and Saint Sebastian Transfixt with Arrows (mid-1630's)-all in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

During the late 1630's he began to use more color, freedom of composition, and motion: Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalene (1636, San Fernando Academy, Madrid; a version also in The Hispanic Society of America, New York); The Battle of Women (1636, Prado, Madrid); and Venus and Adonis (1637, National Gallery, Rome). Late masterpieces of great skill and simplicity are Adoration of the Shepherds (1650, Louvre, Paris) and The Last Supper (1651, National Museum, Naples). Among his imitators and disciples are Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano.

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