01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretation of the Bible! from the SPANISH GOLDEN AGE, With Footnotes - 84

Juan Correa de Vivar (c.1510 - 16 April 1566)

Christ On The Road To Calvary

This panel was painted by Juan Correa de Vivar during the 1540s, and almost certainly formed part of the artist’s most important commission for the Cistercian Monastery of San Martín de Valdeiglesias, in the diocese of Toledo. It is an outstanding example of both Correa’s mature style and, more generally, the Mannerist tradition prevalent in Spain around the middle of the century, of which Correa himself was one of the leading exponents. More on this painting

Calvary, also Gagulta, was, according to the Gospels, a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was said to have been crucified. Golgotha(s) is the Greek transcription in the New Testament of the Aramaic term Gagultâ. The Bible translates the term to mean place of [the] skull, which in Latin is Calvariæ Locus, from which the English word Calvary is derived. More on Calvary, also Gagulta 

Juan Correa de Vivar (c.1510 - 16 April 1566) was a Spanish painter born in Mascaraque. When Juan was 17 or 18 years old he joined an artist workshop in Burgundy where he met with many other Spanish artists at the time.

Juan was heavily influenced by Raphael. One of his most important works was the altarpiece of the church of Almonacid de Zorita, in the province of Guadalajara. This work was done in collaboration with Alonso de Covarrubias. It was destroyed in World War II in 1936-39. From Raphael he took his colorful tone and delicate and smooth figures. Over the years his style evolved into more dynamic forms of Mannerism.

In the province of Toledo have been found some of Juan’s better known works. They include the altarpiece of San Roque, in Almorox, and the altarpiece of the collegiate church of Torrijos, whose twelve tables were done with the help of students of their factory. The Museo del Prado of Madrid also includes many excellent examples of his work.

Some of the work came to him through familiar contacts. Juan’s paintings for the greater altarpiece of Clarisas of Nectarine, dated between 1532 and 1534, were funded by his uncle Don Rodrigo de Vivar. Included works in these early years are also the table of the Birth of the Santa María de Guadalupe monastery and the altarpiece of identical subject that Juan did for Stewing, which today can be found in both the Museo del Prado and the Museum of Santa Cruz de Toledo. 

Some of his masterpieces from the 1540s can be found at the monastery of San Martin de Valdeiglesias today. There were also highly admired altarpieces that were taken after the ecclesiastical confiscation of 1836 and given to the Prado, other pinacotecas like those of Saragossa or Vigo, and churches like San Jerónimo el Real of Madrid.

Between 1550 and 1566, the year of his death, Juan’s style became more personal, taking on a mannerism style that makes his figures more forceful and energetic, but without losing his traditional elegance. More on Juan Correa de Vivar

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