Spanish Baroque painting in the context of "Caravaggisti"

The Spanish Golden Age (Spanish: Siglo de Oro Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsiɣlo ðe ˈoɾo], "Golden Century") was a period that coincided with the political rise of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Habsburgs, during which arts and literature flourished in Spain. It is associated with the reigns of Isabella I, Ferdinand II, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV. The Golden Age is generally considered to begin in 1492, marked by the end of the Reconquista, Christopher Columbus’s voyages, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's Grammar of the Castilian Language. It ended around 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees, though some extend it to 1681, after the death of Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

The period of cultural flourishing saw major patrons, with El Escorial attracting leading artists including El Greco, contributing to a distinct Spanish style, and also includes the Plateresque/Renaissance and early Spanish Baroque styles, with major figures like Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, Diego Velázquez, and composers such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Francisco Guerrero.

Jusepe de Ribera (Valencian: [josep ðe riˈβeɾa]; baptised 17 February 1591 – 3 November 1652) was a Spanish painter and printmaker. Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referring to a series of Ribera exhibitions held in the late 20th century, Philippe de Montebello wrote "If Ribera's status as the undisputed protagonist of Neapolitan painting had ever been in doubt, it was no longer. Indeed, to many it seemed that Ribera emerged from these exhibitions as not simply the greatest Neapolitan artist of his age but one of the outstanding European masters of the seventeenth century." Jusepe de Ribera has also been referred to as José de Ribera (usual in Spanish and French), Josep de Ribera (in Catalan), and was called Lo Spagnoletto (Italian for "the Little Spaniard") by his contemporaries and early historians.

Ribera created history paintings, including traditional Biblical subjects and episodes from Greek mythology. He is perhaps best known for his numerous views of martyrdom, which at times are brutal scenes depicting bound saints and satyrs as they are flayed or crucified in agony. Less familiar are his occasional, but accomplished portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Nearly half of his surviving work consist of half length portraits of workers and beggars, often older individuals in ragged clothes, posing as various philosophers, saints, apostles and allegorical figures. Ribera's paintings, particularly his early work, are characterized by stark realism using a chiaroscuro or tenebrist style. His later work embraced a greater use of color, softer light, and more complex compositions, although he never entirely abandoned his Caravaggisti leanings.

Juan Sánchez Cotán (June 25, 1560 – September 8, 1627) was a Spanish Baroque painter, a pioneer of realism in Spain. His still lifes and bodegones were painted in an austere style, especially when compared to similar works in the Netherlands and Italy.

Bodegón refers to a type of pictorial composition from the 17th Spanish Baroque period in which the subject matter is an arrangement of objects, including uncooked food, kitchen utensils and other household items, in nondescript or humble surroundings. Commoners are sometimes depicted, selling food, eating or drinking.

The artistic objective of Spanish bodegón painters was to render the scene with impactful realism. Careful attention was dedicated to capture the textures of the objects and to create believable dimensionality, by using different types of brushstrokes and the technique of chiaroscuro.