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for Claudio Coello
Claudio Coello
Spanish, 1642 - 1693
Spanish painter and draughtsman. Together with the court painters Francisco Rizi, Juan Carreño de Miranda and Francisco de Herrera (ii), he was one of the foremost exponents of a style of Spanish painting that developed between c. 1660 and 1700 and was characterized by theatrical compositions and rich colours. The sources of this late Baroque style, which was distinct from that of the previous generation of Spanish Baroque artists, most of whom painted sober, realistic depictions of religious and secular life, lie in the influence exerted by Venetian Renaissance painting and by Italian and Flemish art of the period, examples of which were plentiful in Madrid in royal and aristocratic collections.
1. Life and works.
(i) Before 1679.
Coello’s parents were Portuguese, from the region of Viseu. His father, a bronze craftsman, sent his son to learn drawing in the workshop of Francisco Rizi; according to Palomino, Rizi soon saw Coello’s talent and persuaded his father to allow him to continue his studies in the workshop, probably until at least 1668. Coello’s earliest dated canvas is Christ at the Door of the Temple (1660; Madrid, Prado). While it betrays a certain youthful uncertainty, slightly later paintings, such as Christ Served by Angels (1661; Barcelona, priv. col., see Sullivan 1986, p. 102), Susanna and the Elders (1663; Ponce, Mus. A.) and the Triumph of St Augustine (1664; Madrid, Prado), show Coello as a mature artist. The Triumph of St Augustine, perhaps the most accomplished of these works, depicts the saint, dressed in a rich red cope, in ecstatic triumph above a broken bust of a Roman emperor beside a monstrous dragon. Like many of Coello’s paintings, it represents the triumph of Catholicism over heresy, a theme favoured by Spanish Counter-Reformation artists. The colouring reflects the warm tonality of paintings by Titian and Rubens, while the theatrical nature of the composition reveals Coello’s intensive study of contemporary Flemish and Italian painting. In 1666 Coello received his first documented large-scale independent commission, for the paintings for the main altarpiece in the church of Santa Cruz, Madrid (destr.). There were seven paintings (destr.), for which he was paid 4000 reales. The two central scenes depicted the Finding of the True Cross and the Triumph of the Cross. Coello later painted the frescoes in the presbytery of the same church in collaboration with José Jiménez Donoso. In 1668 Coello received a more ambitious commission from the Benedictine nuns of S Plácido, Madrid, who requested three altarpieces for the retable above the high altar; these depict the Annunciation, St Gertrude and SS Benedict and Scholastica (all in situ). He based his Annunciation on a composition by Rubens that survives in an oil sketch, the Incarnation as the Fulfilment of all the Prophecies (c. 1628–9; Merion Station, PA, Barnes Found.). Coello’s large-scale works contain numerous figures, often in contorted (although not mannered) poses, placed within complex architectural backgrounds reminiscent of surviving stage designs of the time, which were themselves based principally on Italian models. His knowledge of theatrical design was possibly gained by working as a stage designer for the court theatres in the Palacio del Buen Retiro, Madrid, and elsewhere. Although no drawings by him for stage scenery survive, he undoubtedly assisted Rizi (who was director of the Buen Retiro theatre for many years) in his scenographic projects.
These same traits mark Coello’s work in fresco, a medium for which he was especially well known in his day. His earliest frescoes date from the 1670s, a period in which he also executed a large number of altarpieces for churches in Madrid; many of these works are lost and known only through the descriptions of Palomino and Ceán Bermúdez. About 1671–4 Coello and Donoso frescoed the ceiling of the vestry of Toledo Cathedral. This small painting depicts illusionistic architecture opening on to a view of putti in the sky holding the staff and mitre of the Archbishop of Toledo. In 1673–4 the same two artists also painted three much larger ceiling frescoes in the Real Casa de la Panadería (now the Municipal Archive) in the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, including depictions of the Labours of Hercules and the escutcheon of the Habsburg monarchy. Two of these ceilings, painted al secco, survive but have been greatly repainted. Coello’s most important fresco projects of the 1670s include paintings on the ceiling of the sacristy and in the Capilla Borgia of the Jesuit Colegio Imperial (now S Isidro Cathedral) in Madrid. The frescoes were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, but photographs reveal their complex fictive architecture and large numbers of animated figures. Both these works and Coello’s easel paintings are greatly indebted to foreign sources of inspiration. The late Baroque style of fresco painting in Spain had been introduced by the Italian painters Agostino Stanzani Mitelli and Angelo Michele Colonna (colleagues of Pietro da Cortona), both of whom had been brought to Spain from Florence in 1658 to decorate the walls of the Palacio Real.
In 1674 Coello was contracted to execute six paintings for the retable in S Juan Evangelista in Torrejón de Ardoz, near Madrid. Only the large central painting, depicting the Torment of St John the Evangelist, survives (in situ). The picture is based on Titian’s Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1564–7; Madrid, Escorial, Iglesia Vieja) and demonstrates the same stylistic traits that characterize Coello’s earlier work: a dynamic form, with dramatic recessions into space, theatrical gestures and rich colouring. There is very little stylistic progression in Coello’s work; he seems to have found an appreciative audience for his art early in his career and to have been loth to deviate from the manner that pleased them.
(ii) 1679–93.
Coello executed his first works for the Spanish crown in 1679–80. On 13 January 1680 Queen Marie Louise of Orleans, first wife of Charles II, made her triumphal entry into Madrid. Coello was one of the principal designers of a series of arches that, along with other decorations, were constructed and adorned with allegorical subjects for this event. In 1683 he was appointed painter to the king, a post vacated on the death of Dionisio Mantuano. A year later he painted a large-scale fresco cycle in the church of S Roque in Saragossa, formerly the Augustinian collegiate church of S Tomas de Villanueva. His only religious fresco to survive, it includes in the dome above the transept a representation of the Virgin of El Pilar, the patroness of Saragossa, and depictions of St Alipius, St Fulgentius, St Patrick and St Simplician, all companions of St Augustine, on the pendentives below the drum. In 1686 Coello ascended to a higher post in the court hierarchy when he was made court painter; at the same time he was given the honorary title of ‘Ayuda de la Furriera’ (‘Keeper of the keys’), which made him responsible for the upkeep of the palace collections of painting, sculpture and furnishings.
The previous year Coello had been called from Madrid to continue work on a large altarpiece for the sacristy of the church in the Escorial begun by Rizi shortly before his death that year. According to Palomino, Coello considered the perspective point to be too high in Rizi’s initial sketch (the only thing he had finished), so he revised the original idea, the result being the Sagrada Forma or Charles II and his Court Adoring the Eucharist (1685–90; in situ). It is set into an elaborately sculpted retable above the altar of the sacristy. This painting, Coello’s best-known work, is immensely rich in both political and theological meanings. The picture commemorates a spectacular ceremony in 1684 during which the Host, which is held in a gold monstrance by the Prior of the Escorial, Fray francisco de los Santos, was transferred to the sacristy. On one level the painting belongs to a tradition of images depicting the Habsburg ruler in an act of eucharistic worship, and on another it continues the long line of images that proclaim and glorify the secular and religious power of the Habsburg monarchs. In the elegance of some of the individual portraits and in the costumes, the picture shows the influence of Anthony van Dyck, combined with the rich, warm tones of Venetian painting. In preparation for the final painting, Coello made portrait drawings and oil sketches of the many individuals portrayed. Extant examples, such as the oil sketches of Charles II and Fray Francisco de los Santos (both Nelahozeves Castle, Str(edoc(eská Gal.), attest to the meticulousness of the artist’s working method. He did not work on the Sagrada Forma continuously; in 1686 he is recorded as having begun a series of frescoes in the Galería del Cierzo (Gallery of the North Wind) in the Palacio Real. These were later completed by Palomino and other artists.
During the last three years of Coello’s life, most of his work was done for religious institutions outside Madrid. He must still have had some commissions in the city, however, for in 1691 he wrote a letter to one of his patrons, a Father Matilla of the Premonstratentian monastery in Madrid, stating that he found it difficult to work because of ill-health but promised to complete the paintings commissioned of him by the monastery. The same year he was named chief painter for Toledo Cathedral and executed an important altarpiece with scenes of the Immaculate Conception and the Coronation of the Virgin for the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in the town of La Calzada de Oropesa, Toledo (in situ). He also began work for several churches in Salamanca, painting two large canvases of St Thomas of Villanueva and St John of Sahagún for the convent of S Agustín (now in Salamanca, Convent of the Carmelitas del Carmen de Abajo) and a Martyrdom of St Stephen that was set into the imposing retable designed by José Benito Churriguera in S Esteban (in situ). This is thought to be Coello’s last painting. Palomino recorded that when Charles II invited the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano to work at the court of Madrid, Coello became extremely envious and vowed never to work for the King again; there are no recorded works for the crown painted during his last years.
Although Coello’s greatest contribution was as a painter of religious scenes in oil and fresco, he also produced a small number of secular scenes, mainly portraits. Among the most successful of these are depictions of Charles II (c. 1680; Madrid, Prado) and his mother, Marianna of Austria (c. 1689–90; Munich, Alte Pin.). His drawings in chalk and pen (mainly in Madrid, Prado and Bib. N.) document the artist’s many lost works. The style of the drawings with their rapid, nervous lines shows the impact of Italian, particularly Bolognese, artists.
2. Posthumous reputation.
Coello’s pupils and numerous followers, including Palomino, Sebastián Muñoz and Isidoro Arredondo, continued his manner of late Baroque painting into the first decades of the 18th century. Artists in provincial centres, such as in the region of Aragón where Coello had worked in the early 1680s, were also influenced by him, for instance Vicente Verdusán ( fl c. 1650–1700), who was active in Tudela and other Aragonese towns.
Edward J. Sullivan. "Coello, Claudio." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T018444 (accessed April 16, 2012).
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