Word: neapolitans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Jusepe de Ribera was the star of Neapolitan painting...
...lies outside Spain. He emigrated to Italy, that artistic magnet of the 17th century, when he was hardly out of his teens and spent most of his life in Spanish-ruled Naples, doing commissions for the Italian church and expatriate Spanish grandees. He rapidly became the unchallenged star of Neapolitan painting and remained so until his death in 1652. Until recently, his art stayed in a sort of limbo; very few visitors to the Prado would ever turn out of the traffic stream headed for Velazquez to take a good look at the great Riberas, like The Martyrdom of Saint...
Royalty and privilege are threatened. So too is a genteel culture represented by Sir William, British envoy to the decadent Neapolitan court. A collector of antiquities and an amateur scientist, he occasions Sontag's heavier musings. Unfortunately, he is too underpowered to be the principal vehicle in a historical tour de force. Making a cameo appearance, Goethe dismisses him as "a simple-minded epicurean...