BARRERA, Francisco

This mature work is a still-life of fish suspended from hooks, together with bowls of fish on raised ledges, with eels and other fish, eggs, cheese, an orange, ceramic pots, a pestle and mortar and a cooking pot, all arranged upon a stone top.

Francisco Barrera became an important figure in the artistic community in Madrid during the 1630s and 1640s, when he took over leadership of the painters’ guild. However, he remained a relatively undistinguished master in the panorama of painting at the Spanish court. Like many other painters of limited talents, Barrera was an all-rounder whose production centred on religious subjects, images of saints, landscapes and still-lifes. Like Juan de Arellano, Barrera worked for the open market and sold his paintings from a shop in the centre of Madrid. The rise in popularity of still-life and flower paintings among collectors in Madrid during the middle years of the century doubtlessly encouraged Barrera to turn to this genre. Although his religious paintings are unknown today, his still-life paintings show that he developed a distinct personality in paintings of this type.

This painting represents lilies and carnations in an oriental-style vase, the freshness of the lilies denoted by the fact that only five of the blooms have opened. Alongside these, there is a plate of cherries and apricots, that are kept cool by pieces of snow from the wine cooler. The representation on the vase of a monkey picking fruit whimsically relates this object to the fruit collected in the bowl in the picture. A jug of water is placed in the background and in the foreground a pie rests on a napkin, with a knife.

The painting typifies Barrera’s style in still-life and flower painting. He has sharply defined the forms and details of the flowers, and a certain hardness in their facture reflects the influence of the flower paintings of Juan van der Hamen and Antonio Ponce, the latter working with Barrera on decorative painting projects at the Buen Retiro in the 1630s.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Franz Schubert: Blumenlied (Flower Song) D 431

This painting is one of a series of large-scale still-lifes of the twelve months. These comprise a wide range of foodstuffs associated with the different months arranged on a series of ledges, accompanied by a landscape vignette, complete with small figures engaged in activities appropriate for the time of year. The series is now dispersed, over half of the pictures are only known.

A flower piece is the most conspicuous element in the painting of The Month of May, the season of flowers. The copious arrangement of blooms in a glass vase is placed on a red damask tablecloth, between two splendid decorative wickerwork baskets filled with fruit and vegetables. At the left of the painting, there are hunting dogs and a gun, a caged bird and various foodstuffs associated with this time of year on a shelf. The painting has a particularly cheering, sunny mood that is entirely appropriate to this season of natural regeneration.