Netherlandish painter, active mainly in Seville and known by the Spanish form of his name rather than the Flemish one, Pieter de Kempeneer. Before settling in Seville he had worked in Italy and he exercised a strong influence in Andalusia as a pioneer of Mannerism and the style of Raphael. Several of his paintings are in Seville Cathedral. In 1562 he left Spain to direct a tapestry factory at Brussels, his native city.
During the 1550s Campaña executed his two major surviving commissions, the altarpiece of the Purification (1555) in the Cathedral and the imposing retable for the parish church of Santa Ana (begun in 1557), both in Seville. The altarpiece of the Purification, consisting of ten panels, adorns the funerary chapel of Diego Caballero, a veteran of the conquest of Peru, who had served in the colonial administration on Hispaniola. The donor and members of his family are represented in two of the predella panels, which are fine examples of Flemish portraiture and constitute an unusual record of the middle class of Spanish society.
The Purification of the Virgin, the centrepiece of the retable, is a work of considerable sophistication. The basic composition is based on a print by D�rer, which has been reframed in a carefully rendered classical structure. Surrounding the central scene are personifications that embody the virtues of the Virgin Mary - Charity, Justice, Fortitude, Faith and Hope among them.
This work evinces a somewhat better grasp of current Italian art, than the Descent from the Cross, which was done some eight years earlier. Campaña seems to have become a more Italianate painter although there is no record that he went to Italy after settling in Seville.
The painter was one of the first foreign artists settled in Seville. This Crucifixion was executed in the first years of his activity there.
In Seville, the second third of the sixteenth century also witnessed the introduction of a style of painting that reflected the ascendancy of Raphael. In this center, the most important artist of the period were undoubtedly of Northern origin: the Dutchman Fernando Esturmio (Storm), and the Fleming Pedro de Campaña (Kempeneer). The latter, the more gifted of the two, was born in Brussels in 1503. He was trained in Italy, but in 1537 he is known to have been employed in the Cathedral of Seville. Shortly before 1563 he returned to his native country.
The style of this master includes elements derived from Michelangelo, but these are offset by original plastic qualities and a sense of drama. One of Campaña’s key works is the Descent from the Cross (1547) in Seville cathedral, a painting that anticipates the Baroque of Rubens and was much admired by other Spanish artists, particularly Murillo. Campaña had a more amiable and genuinely Raphaelesque side, evident in the altarpiece of the Marshal’s Chapel in Seville cathedral, which he was commissioned to paint in 1555. His progress toward the Baroque and his interest in the rendering of light are revealed in his admirable Adoration of the Magi, which was painted in 1557 (church of Santa Ana, Seville).
