Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra

Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra (Jul 10, 1616 - Feb 2, 1668) was a Spanish Baroque Spanish painter from Cordoba, whose school is the best exponent, as well as being a landscaper and draftsman, a facet in which he can be counted among Most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age

Born in Córdoba, he was the son of the painter Agustín del Castillo, of whom little is known but whom Palomino calls "excellent painter" and illustrious family, and Ana de Guerra. Originally formed in the paternal workshop, he was orphaned at fifteen years; Being the eldest of four brothers, on November 24, 1631, he appeared before a magistrate in Córdoba asking for a guardian due to his minority. Placed with the painter of imagery Ignacio Aedo Calderón, the contract according to the customary terms established that Aedo was He promised to teach him the role of painter so that he could dedicate his life to it. Castillo would serve him in every possible way in exchange for receiving the training and the care of the teacher as well as being fed, dressed, shoes and provided a place to reside while his According to Palomino, he went to Seville in order to complete his studies with the Cordovan José de Sarabia, "and they succeeded in the school of the famous Francisco de Zurbarán." The relationship with the painter Extremadura, however, lacks documentary confirmation, although it can be sustained for reasons of stylistic affinity, as well as unfounded The relationship of kinship, sustained by Palomino, with the Seville painter Juan del Castillo3

When he returned from Seville on June 28, 1635, he married his first wife, Catherine de la Nava, a woman fifteen years his senior and with whom she may marry because of the need to establish herself financially and to help her mother and Small brothers With his wife he settled in a rented house in the street in front of the Hospital of the Lamp and with the dowry of his wife furnished his new home

In 1638 he is mentioned as a painter of imagery in the first document that refers to him as a master painter: the contract for the painting of an image of San José sculpted by the Cordovan Bernabé Gómez del Río for the parish church of Montoro, by the Which had to collect 21 ducats In 1642 subcontracted with the painter Diego de Borja a canvas of San Pedro Nolasco receiving the Mercedarian habit and four small paintings that represented San Pedro Armengol, San Serapio, Santa Maria del Socorro and Santa Colaxia for the high altar Of the convent of Our Lady of the Mercedes Outside the Walls, for a total of fifty ducats Even so, the greater part of its income in this first stage came from the works sold in the store that had been of its father It changed its premises in two occasions being settled Definitively the 31 of August of 1641 in the local located in the street of Libreros, continuation of the street of the Fair, now known as Diario Córdoba

On October 28, 1644, Catalina de la Nava died prematurely, leaving him with a fifth of his property and sharing the rest between Andrés Pérez and Francisca de León, children of his first marriage. Finally, with the intervention of Castillo's lawyer, everything remained In two payments of 400 reales. In 1645 the canon Lupercio González commissioned to him the martyrdom of San Pelayo for the private chapel that possessed in the trascoro of the cathedral Cordobesa It would be the first order of this nature, followed by some works for the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary next to the chapel of the Inca Garcilaso, gilded by her father some years before

Five years after the death of Catherine de la Nava contracted remarriage with Maria Magdalena Valdés, daughter of the silversmith Simón Rodríguez de Valdés This began one of the most prosperous stages for the Cordovan artist, in which increased important orders: El Calvario ( Currently in the Museum of Fine Arts of Cordoba) destined to the main hall of the tribunal of the Inquisition; The order of the mural of the Virgin, San Felipe and Santiago the Lesser, for the cathedral; The murals for the Puerta del Perdón of the cathedral; The Coronation of the Virgin, for the church of the Hospital of Jesus Nazareno and the San Rafael for José de Valdecañas and Herrera who would donate it to the consortium

On the occasion of the plague of 1649 and 1650, Castillo presented a poem to the poetry contest convened by the city in honor of the archangel Saint Raphael in demand of protection against the disease. The six stanzas of Castillo, dedicated to the first appearance of the archangel To the Cordoban brother Simón de Sousa in 1278, won a second prize and were collected in 1653 in the commemorative book of Pedro Mexia de la Cerda, Relation of ecclesiastical and secular festivals that the noble and always loyal City of Cordoba has done to His Angel Custodio S Rafael this year of MDCLI (sic)

In 1652 Maria Magdalena Valdés passed away leaving Castillo widowed for the second time, which prevented him from attending the presentation of the literary prize in the church of San Pablo. On July 30, 1654 he signed a marriage contract with Francisca de Paula Lara and Almoguera. Years of his life are somewhat worse documented due to lack of written documentation and artistic production During his last stage he lodges in Muñices Street, where he would be a neighbor of what was then the Cordoba elite. In 1666, says Palomino, he traveled to Seville, to which he had not returned since the years of his studies, and there he discovered Murillo's painting and the beauty of its colors, "which he lacked, with so much drawing left over", which made him exclaim: "Already Castle died!

Something of what was learned from Murillo would be manifested in his later works, according to Palomino, especially in a half-body San Francisco who painted for the merchant Lorenzo Mateo, who "exceeds in good taste, and sweetness in the head, and hands to all What Castillo did in his life, because in truth he lacked a certain grace and good taste in color. "5 He died on February 2, 1668, in the house on the street Muñices without descendants

Work:
In his painting Castillo moves with little evolution in the orbit of naturalism, oblivious to the new, more baroque currents. The imprint of an apprenticeship in zurbaranescos environments is noticed in some of his compositions of religious matter, such as the Calvary of the Inquisition, Which he painted for the Salon of the Holy Office in the Alcazar of the Christian kings (currently in the Museum of Fine Arts in Cordoba), the Adoration of the Shepherds of the Prado Museum, deposited in the Museum of Malaga, or the Birth of the Hispanic Society, treated with solemn monumentality and tenebrist illumination

More personal is shown in the paintings of a narrative nature, with numerous figures placed in architectural or landscape frames in which they will reveal their spatial sense and the numerous studies of the natural one that used to make "Excellent landscaper" according to Palomino, and endowed For this kind of "singular grace," as the numerous pictures kept in private houses with stories and citadels, Castillo "went out for a few days to walk, with a message to draw, and copied some places by the natural taking advantage of the cabins, And cortijos of that land; Where he also copied the animals, chariots and other adherents. "6 Of this interest for the immediate part are about 150 drawings, both of heads and landscapes, animals and scenes of peasants, who will use in the landscape backgrounds of his oil- That the faces of the characters are also true portraits. Examples of this are in the series of six paintings dedicated to the life of José, preserved in the Prado Museum, in which Alfonso E Pérez Sánchez emphasized his "luminous sense of the landscape With refined silver and greenish grays, "7 though Palomino found him displeased in color, or in the celebrated Martyrdom of San Pelayo of the Cathedral of Cordoba," where Castillo showed the eminence of his wit in the historicized "8 Two small canvases of landscape format in private collection, with scenes of the infancy of Jesus (Rest in the flight to Egypt and Sueño de San José), located in wide landscapes with white ciu In the remote areas, can illustrate those countries alluded to by Palomino in private houses in Cordoba

The correct composition and realism of his portraits can be seen in the Baptism of St. Francis of Assisi of the Museum of Fine Arts in Córdoba, painted in 1663 for the cloister of the Franciscan convent of San Pedro el Real, where, according to Palomino, Of seeing the signature of Juan de Alfaro repeatedly competing with him with other paintings for the same cloister, he signed "non fecit Alfarus" 10 Samples of the same immediate naturalism that can be seen in his drawings are also found in the San Francisco preaching before the pope Innocent III, in the parish of San Francisco and San Eulogio de la Axerquía, where among the distinguished princes of the church attend the sermon beggars, people of the town absorbed and restless children

Antonio del Castillo also painted frescoes, being his the images of the apostles Peter and Paul with the patron saints of the city in the Puerta del Perdón of the Cathedral of Córdoba (preparatory drawing in the Museum of Fine Arts) With Cristóbal Vela competed for The work was done frequently for the Franciscans and for the Dominicans, being his paintings the monumental staircase of the College of San Pablo of the Order of Preachers, of Which comes from the appearance of Saint Paul to King Ferdinand III, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Cordoba, but also needed to work for the different churches in the city and for some members of the urban oligarchy, in Occasions dictated according to the conditions of those who commissioned the work, with "great mortification of him; Because he was not so much left of means or works that he could leave some "
http://hisour.com/artist/antonio-del-castillo-y-saavedra/