BOCANEGRA, Pedro Anastasio - b. 1638 Granada, d. 1689 Granada

Spanish painter. After youthful study with Spanish Baroque painter Alonso Cano, Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra absorbed many elements of Cano’s art and followed in his master’s footsteps to become a major painter in Granada. From 1668 he began to receive important commissions. In 1670 he painted a series of canvases (in situ) on the Life of the Virgin for the lateral walls of the church of the Charterhouse in Granada. These paintings displayed Cano’s influence in their lively colouring and dynamic compositions, along with vigorous Baroque illusionistic effects. Almost immediately after finishing these works, he painted two more small compositions for the chancel depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi (in situ). He followed this commission with several large works in 1672-73 for the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians, also in Granada.

Bocanegra’s late style still showed Cano’s imprint, which he combined with his own softness of modeling and sentimentality. He painted mostly religious subjects and some portraits. Highly prolific and in demand, Bocanegra seems to have sacrificed quality for quantity.

St Dominic in Soriano

It was told that in 1530 a Dominican monk of Soriano in southern Italy dreamed that the Virgin, accompanied by Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Siena, presented him with a portrait of St Dominic. he awoke to find himself possessed of just such a portrait, which was discovered to have miraculous properties. This subject occurs in Dominican church art of the baroque period and shows the monk dressed in the habit of his Order kneeling before the Virgin and two saints, receiving the portrait. It is a full-length picture of Dominic and shows him holding a lily and a book.

Bocanegra was influenced by Alonso Cano. By 1668 he was established as the major painter active in Granada and he received several important commissions.