Mateo Cerezo

Mateo Cerezo (Apr 19, 1637 - Jun 29, 1666) was a Baroque Spanish painter.

Cerezo was born in Burgos to his father Mateo Cerezo the Elder. In 1654 he moved to Madrid and studied with Juan Carreno de Miranda and possibly with Antonio de Pereda.

He died young at age forty years, and much of his work is at the Prado Museum in Madrid, as well as at the Museo de Burgos.

Biography:
Years of training:
The son of Mateo Cerezo Muñoz and Isabel Delgado, daughter of a well-known gourmand of Burgos, was baptized the one of April of the parish of Santiago of the cathedral of Burgos. His father, Mateo Cerezo el Viejo, or Malo, as Jovellanos called him, a modest painter known mainly for his portraits of Santo Cristo de Burgos, would lead the most active of the Burgos workshops of his time. With him began the formation of the young Mateo, of whom an early oil is known with the image of San Pedro in tears (Burgos, MM Calatravas), a partial copy of an engraving by José de Ribera, signed "Matheito Zerezo".
According to Antonio Palomino, he moved to Madrid "when he was only fifteen years old" and entered the workshop of Juan Carreño de Miranda, whose style he would have assimilated better than any of his other disciples. Lacking documentary confirmation, the training next to Carreño has been questioned by José R. Buendía and Ismael Gutiérrez Pastor in the most complete monograph dedicated to the painter. The style of the first known works of Cerezo as independent painter, the paintings of the altarpiece of the convent of Jesus and Maria de Valladolid, documented between and, would indicate on the contrary a closer proximity to the solid and solid models of Antonio de Pereda, characteristics that They have no continuity in the rest of his work. Palomino also affirmed that the young Cerezo had completed his training "frequenting the academies, and painting the natural, portraying some, only by studying, and copying different originals of the Palace." Although the Cordovan biographer resorted to topics that could be applied in a manner similar to the training of any painter, the frequentation of the various academies, with the copy of the great masters and the study of the natural, could explain, in effect, the Precocious assimilation by the young Cerezo of the changes that were taking place in Madrid painting around the final years of the decade under the influence of Francisco de Herrera el Mozo and his Triumph of San Hermenegildo. And even when it is not known under what circumstances it could have taken place, since there is no record of works for the crown, nor is it possible that at some point in his formation he should enjoy the opportunity to study the palace paintings, as Palomino indicated, Given the knowledge of the painting of Titian and Anton van Dyck which is evident in the light technique and the warm coloring of his mature works.

-. First works. Valladolid and Burgos:
In April, Don Ventura de Onís contracted with the engraver Francisco Velázquez the making of the main altarpiece of the convent of Franciscans of Jesus and Maria de Valladolid of which he was patron. Through the intermediary of his son, Antonio de Onís, a member of the Royal Council of Treasury, the architect Sebastián de Benavente provided the traces from Madrid and it is possible that he was also the one who recommended Cerezo to take over painting, even if his name does not appear in the contract. In its present state of preservation, having lost the paintings of the bank and the tabernacle, it consists of five oils of Cherry, two of them signed: Adoration of the Shepherds and Adoration of the Kings in the side streets of the main body and the Assumption Of the Virgin in the attic, flanked by two tables in which San Buenaventura and St. Elizabeth of Hungary are represented. This set of paintings, the only one painted by Cerezo that is preserved in the place for which it was conceived, is also the one that most approximates it in models and technique to Antonio de Pereda.

To take charge of his painting, Cerezo moved to Valladolid in October. There is news of this trip by a bloody event that took him to prison. That month, the jeweler Antonio de Tapia left his guarantor to get him out of jail, where he had entered for killing the mule that had driven him from Madrid, for which he was claimed the eight hundred and fifty reales in which The animal had been taxed. A day later, free, he granted powers to attorneys for his defense. The time spent in Valladolid is unknown. It is possible that he spent the last few months of and for most of the year. A stage in which, whatever his problems with the law, he did not stop working intensely, as can be seen from the high number of works attributed to him in Valladolid by Palomino, although those preserved are only those of the convent of Jesus and Mary, the reclining Christ of the parish of San Lorenzo, very dear from the beginning, as evidenced by the multiple copies made of it in the near future, and two early versions of the Immaculate: the one that was signed in was in the collection Mac Crohom of Madrid and the one conserved in the parochial church of Cubillas of Santa Marta.
"In order to go back to his homeland," Palomino wrote, he went on to Burgos, which, in the absence of documentary confirmation, could be certified by the presence of some early paintings by Cerezo in the province, such as the Cristo de Dolores de la Dolores Church of the Nativity of Villasandino, derived from a well-known prototype of Pereda, or the signed Baptism of Christ de Castrojeriz, compositionally related to the relief of the same theme sculpted by Gregorio Fernandez for the Chapel of the Discalced Carmelites of Valladolid, now preserved in the Museum National Sculpture.
Greater problem poses in this scheme the San Francisco of Assisi and the angel with the bulb of the museum of the cathedral of Burgos, that according to the documentation painted in or before. The report presented by Fabrician Fernando de Abarca to the cathedral chapter in September, bearing in mind the expenses that had been incurred in the decoration of the trascoro, which had been worked between and for which Friar Juan Rizi had painted six paintings, He also made mention of the payment of five hundred reales to "a painter Matheo Zérego (...) BY THE [SICILIAN] FRANCISCO WHICH HE DID". As a work of advanced style, which shows the knowledge of the most dynamic Madrid painting of the baroque and the domain of the foreshortening, it allows us to rethink the early study of the work of Carreño by the young Cerezo, according to what is affirmed by Palomino, and the early assimilation of his style.
-. Madrid:
The brief data provided by Palomino, along with some signed work and the power to test granted in favor of María Campuzano, his wife, the June of, in which he declared himself neighbor of Burgos and resident in Madrid, is all that is known His biography in these years of intense activity.

In the year of his return to Madrid, the sumptuous Mystical Desposorios of Santa Catalina of the Museo del Prado appear, signed with a fluid brushstroke and warm color in the Tizianesque-Vandyckian way of Carreño. From the same year, dated and signed in the upper frame, it is an Immaculate Conception of the convent of the Comendadoras of Santiago de Madrid, related to Claudio Coello, and of due date, for its stylistic and formal similarities with the work of the Prado, To be the Santo Tomás de Villanueva giving alms of the Museum of the Louvre, work that has been traditionally attributed to Carreño de Miranda. The painting, which belonged to the collection of Marshal Soult, has been related to a work described by Antonio Ponz in the primitive convent of the Augustinian Recollects of Toledo, which could have been painted in situ if Cerezo traveled at this time to the imperial city , As seems to show the almost literal copy that made Cherry of the Crucifixion of the Greco now conserved in the Museum of Art of
Philadelphia. The copy, signed "Matheo Zerez" (Buenos Aires, National Museum of Decorative Art), proves in any case its surprising ability to adapt to different styles and the ease with which it assimilated heterogeneous influences, with which it will configure its own style.

Two other works are signed: a second version of the mystical Desposorios of Santa Catalina, larger than the Prado and the most pasty technique, donated in the 18th century to the cathedral of Palencia by the archdeacon Diego de Colmenares, and The penitent Magdalena of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the most popular and esteemed creations of the painter, figure of half body as destined to private devotion, and half-naked, of which numerous copies and replicas are known, some of them autograph as it is The one of the old collection Czernin of Vienna, signed and dated in.

Having lost some of the most significant works of the painter's maturity, the great altar painting is represented in these years by the Saint Augustine of the Prado Museum and the Impression of the Sores to St. Francis of Assisi of the University of Wisconsin, both Works dated in and coming from the convent of Carmelitas Barefoot of San Hermenegildo of Madrid, where according to Ceán Bermúdez they were in the stairs of the dressing room, next to a painting of Santa Monica of which do not have other news. Although they came from the convent of San Francisco de Valladolid, where Antonio Palomino quoted them as "a most beautiful thing" and a pilgrim, the apparition of the Virgin to St. Francis of Assisi from the Lázaro Galdiano Museum and the Immaculate Conception of the San Sebastián Telmo), in the opinion of Buendía and Pérez Pastor should also be dated at this time for stylistic reasons and lack of documentation on the commission.

A second approach to the subject of St. Thomas of Villanueva giving alms and St. Nicholas Tolentino and the souls of Purgatory, painted for the altars of the Macones of the Royal Monastery of Santa Isabel, were destroyed in the intentional fire of the monastery at the beginning of the Civil War (), Together with the Visitation, also painted by Cerezo, of the attic of the main altarpiece, occupied by the great canvas of the Immaculate of José de Ribera. The traces of the five altars were carried out by Sebastián de Benavente, who contracted his polychromed with Toribio García, reason why it is believed that it could correspond to the same year the order of the paintings to Cerezo, although its conclusion was delayed for reasons Economic and it is possible that at his death he would miss two to paint, of which Claudio Coello and Benito Manuel Agüero would eventually take over. Although they are known only by old photographs, the dynamism of their wise compositions can be seen in them. The comparison with Saint Thomas of
Villanueva del Louvre is very eloquent of how much the painter had advanced in the course of a few years. At the top of a high stairway, arranged diagonally, the figure of the saint is dwarfed in the version of the Madrilenian convent while magnifying the beggars and cripples that come to him, highlighting in the foreground the figure against the light of a mother with his son. In contrast, the Corinthian architecture of the background, of accustomed classicism, appears intensely illuminated and with its trunks almost hidden behind the high horizon, playing dynamically with the lines of force and the depth.

The relationship with Francisco de Herrera el Mozo, whose influence can be seen in figures placed in the backlight and images of angelotes, is also attested by Palomino, for whom "he is famous, who helped Don Francisco de Herrera in the painting of the dome of Nuestra Lady of Atocha ", a work that disappeared with the old Dominican convent, in which it was occupied in. The same year, the one of March, celebrated its marriage with Maria Campuzano, acting like witness Herrera el Mozo.

The last years of the painter's life, which must have been of intense activity, are only preserved signed and accurately dated in a new version of the Magdalena penitente, property of the Brotherhood of the Refuge of Madrid. As with the previous versions of the motif, this new iconography, with the saint lovingly given to the contemplation of the crucifix, obtained an immediate success as shown by the numerous versions and replicas made of it, perhaps some autograph. Reduced the landscape and the accessories present in the previous versions to the essential, also in the formal one sees greater economy in the execution, settled with liquid and fluid brushstrokes, and a very reduced chromatic range, as is also found in Ecce Homo of the Museum of Fine Arts of Budapest, which, therefore, should be placed near the end of his career.

The last thing that came out of his brushes, according to Antonio Palomino, and what "exceeds all pondering" would have been the Emmaus Dinner painted for the refectory of the Convent of the Augustinian Recollects of Madrid,

Where it seems, that as the swan sang his obsequies, for it was the last thing that he did, and where he exceeded himself in the majesty of Christ our Lord, breaking the bread, the admiration of the disciples, who then knew him; Amazement of those attending the Dinner.

The painting apparently left the convent with the confiscation of Joseph Bonaparte, for in the Diario de Madrid he referred to it already in the past, announcing the sale of the print engraved by Jose del Castillo in the painting "which was in The Refectory of the extinguished convent of PP. Recoletos, which may have suffered, and for its restoration it will be very useful to keep this stamp in mind. Now disappeared and known only thanks to the stamp of Jose del Castillo, it is known that it was still owned by the Marquises of Goicoerretea, who sold it for fifty thousand pesetas in that year, and then lost all news of his whereabouts.

Work:

Altarpieces and other works intended for public display:

As works exposed to the public Antonio Palomino quoted first the two altars of the church of Santa Isabel of Madrid dedicated to Santo Tomás de Villanueva giving alms and St. Nicholas of Tolentino removing the souls of the Purgatory, with the oil of the Attic Visitation of the A great altarpiece, "all things truly sovereign, and which reaches to the utmost of art's finest, both in drawing and in coloring." The rest of the works mentioned by the Cordovan biographer were destined to the public exposition: a Saint Michael who was in the disappeared convent of the Agonizantes, a Crucified in the chapel of Our Lady of the Soledad, In the convent of Victory, and an Immaculate in the chapter room of the Cartuja de El Paular, for which he also painted on the door of a tabernacle the "mystery of the Apocalypse, ch. '. Of the works cited by Ceán Bermúdez outside of Madrid, apart from those painted for Valladolid and Burgos, the "Inmacul
Concepcion in his altarpiece, which guarded the cathedral of Malaga and the full-length Magdalena of the cathedral of Badajoz, in poor state of preservation, might not be of Cerezo.

The entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem from the Royal Palace of Madrid (National Patrimony) according to its size (x cm), could also have been destined to the public exhibition in some church or convent, although there is no information of its origin previous to its acquisition By Isabel II to the financial Marquis of Salamanca. The woman with the child in the foreground on the right appears repeated in inverted position and without the child on the lost canvas of the Emperor's Dinner in the refectory of the Convent of the Augustinian Recollects, an advanced work in the production of Cherry, with which Is likewise similar in the nervous gesturing of some of its figures. The Venetian coloring with golden intonation is also characteristic of the painter's last years, close to technique to works such as the Impression of the Sores to Saint Francis of Assisi of the Prado Museum.

The reiteration of Franciscan themes in the production of Cerezo, with the Saint Francis of Assisi and the angel with the blister of the Cathedral of Burgos as a starting point, indicate a continued relationship with the Franciscan convents. The partially conserved altarpiece of the early Franciscan friars of Jesus and Mary of Valladolid could explain the later commission for the convent of San Francisco from the same locality of an apparition of the Virgin to St. Francis of Assisi in life-size figures , Quoted by Palomino in the chapel of his church. Identified with the canvas of the same subject preserved in the Museum Lázaro Galdiano of Madrid after being acquired by the Marquess of Salamanca, probably in Paris where it quoted it Frederic Quilliet in, Palomino and soon Antonio Ponz described it like one of the works of greater merit Of the painter:

In the main chapel of the Convent of Our Seraphic Father St. Francis a large picture with this glorious patriarch kneeling before the image of Mary Most Holy, with her Son in her arms, the natural size, on a cherry tree, with great accompaniment of angels, thing Very beautiful

Even if it were not destined for a Franciscan convent but for the Carmelite barefoot of San Hermengildo of Madrid, the Impression of the Wounds to St. Francis of Assisi from the University of Wisconsin Museum, dated in, is another characteristic approach of Cerezo to the Mystical spirituality of the saint of Assisi compatible with a naturalistic treatment of the habit of crude cloth, perhaps inspired by a composition by Rubens.

Works of devotion:

Count Palomino, who in a little more than twenty years left Carreño's studio to "acquire great credits with the wonderful works he did, as well as Conceptions, and other matters devoted to private individuals." Toward private devotion or its public exposition on altars there are in fact several Immaculate ones painted by Cerezo according to the apotheosis type created by José Antolínez from the models of Rubens and José de Ribera, and sometimes confused with the theme Of the Assumption that he already addressed in, in the attic painting of the altarpiece of the Convent of Jesus and Mary of Valladolid. Of the same year is the signed Inmaculada of the collection Mac Crohom of Madrid, still very static and with base of cherubim reduced, composition that is repeated in the very damaged exemplary of the parochial one of Cubillas of Santa Marta in the province of Valladolid. The Constitution Apostolic Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum dictated by Pope Alexander VII on December, in which he proclaimed the antiquity
D of the pious belief in the Immaculate Conception, admitted his feast, and claimed that few Catholics rejected it, welcomed in Spain with rejoicing, could influence the multiplication of orders at later dates. The new versions, including that of the chapter house of the Convent of the Comendadoras of Santiago de Madrid, the Hospital of the Venerable Third Order in a garland of flowers or the San Telmo Museum of San Sebastián, streamline the composition, forming with the Figure of the Virgin, inscribed in an oval of light, a soft diagonal, with the knee propped on the base of clouds and the mantle shaken by the wind.

Other themes repeated in the production of the painter, in compositions of small or medium format suitable for private devotion, are those of Ecce Homo and Magdalena in half-body figures. Cerezo addressed the subject of Ecce Homo - and the iconographically close type of the Man of Sorrows - on no less than six different occasions. Derived from the type created by Tiziano, combined with the model of the Christ embraced to the cross of Antonio de Pereda -copied by Cerezo in the parish of Villasandino-, the Man of Sorrows of the Orriols collection of Barcelona, ​​showing the wounds left by the nails In the hands, modeled with vigorous strokes and nuanced the carnations with soft glazes, also evidences the knowledge of the work of the Greco. The most traditional type of Ecce Homo is that of the old Arenzana collection in Madrid, with the head elevated and the gaze directed to the sky, which was in the Simonsen collection of São Paulo, with a painful gesture and large watery eyes, Of tears, and
The most intimate of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, probably painted in the last year of his career at the same time as the Magdalena of the Brotherhood of the Refuge of Madrid with which shares the simplification of the forms and the light brushstroke, with the wise Harmonization of color within a small palette of reds, whites and grays.

From the motif of the penitent Magdalene in half-body figure he created three models of which multiple copies were made. The first, the one of the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, signed and dated in, presents the holy gesticulant before the crucifix. Carelessly, the rich fabric shirt falls off the shoulder and bare the chest. The skull and the disciplines put the ascetic counterpoint to the sensual feminine figure of Tizianese root. A second prototype, of which at least two autographs exist in private collections, accentuates asceticism by giving greater prominence to the chains of discipline and the crucifix - reposed on some books - object of his meditation on which the saint inclines, giving Thus forming a diagonal around which the composition is articulated, while eliminating all other sensuality, dressing the saint in crude black clothes hardly distinguishable from the sky wrapped in penumbra. The diagonal, accentuated when prolonged in the provision of the crucifix, s
On which the saint inclines loving, is also the dominant line in the third model, that of the Brotherhood of the Refuge of Madrid. Without resorting, as she had done in the first version, to the sensuality that comes from the repentant sinner, carelessly dressed for being superfluous her old rich clothes that she strips naked to dress rude sack, enhances in its latest approach to beauty Of the woman by the mystical way, like sublimation and overcoming of the ascetic way.

Among these devout works painted for private individuals also mentioned Palomino

Another mysterious thought of the Nativity of Christ our Lord with the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit and some angels with the Cross and other instruments of the Passion; Alluding to that text of San Juan: Sic Deus dilexit mundum & c. All placed with excellent taste, and whimsical concept.

A work of these characteristics, with an autograph signature, appeared in the London art market from a private Belgian collection, and both for the wise composition of the elements that make up his infrequent iconography and for the treatment of the lights are justified the praise Of the Cordovan tratadista. Based on vibrant and thick brush strokes, Cherry emphasizes the supernatural illumination and the vigorous movement of God the Father, who flies over the Virgin and Child with a powerful diagonal. The figure of Saint Joseph, on his back, like the angels bearing the cross, is cut out in a way that reminds him of models of Herrera el Mozo.

According to Palomino, painting does not illustrate a specific evangelical passage but a theological concept, that of the Word incarnate with the omens of the Passion, taken from the Gospel of John: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not die, but have eternal life. " The following verses of the same Gospel might explain the striking use of the light made by Cherry, with three sources of light radiating from each of the three persons of the Trinity: "The cause of condemnation is that light came into the world, And men preferred darkness to the light... But he that worketh truth cometh to the light, that his works may be seen, which are made in God. "

Of infrequent iconography and studied composition is also the Judgment of a soul of the Museum of the Prado, in which it entered from the Museum of the Trinity although its original destiny and the reason of its commission is unknown. Near in technique and color to Carreño and attributed to Cabezalero after entering the Prado, the composition is organized around two diagonals cut in a blade, with the soul, represented like a naked young man in supplicant attitude, and Christ judge on him, in Throne of cherubim, occupying the center of the composition. To the right of Christ, as mediator, his Mother, who wears the habit of Carmel, and underneath the young man, the saints Francis of Assisi, presenting a bread and Domingo de Guzman, showing the rosary, while each One of them points to the figuration of the soul, which thanks to the faith - meaning in the rosary - and works - the bread -, with the mediation of Mary and the intercession of the saints, can expect a favorable sentence.

Still lifes:

Mateo Cerezo's dedication to the still life was known by Antonio Palomino, who exalted his bodegoncillos painted "with so superior excellence, that none surpassed him, if it was equaled by some; Even those of Andres de Leito, who in this Court made them excellent. " The taste for still lifes, possibly inherited from his father, can also be seen in decorative details of some of his religious paintings, such as the basket overflowing with fruit that appears at the feet of the saint in the mystical Desposorios of Santa Catalina of the Museum The Prado and the Cathedral of Palencia; Or, in another order, more specific to the genus vanitas, in the open books, skulls and lilies that accompany the ecstasies and visions of St. Francis of Assisi in his various versions of the cathedral of Burgos, the collection of the Marquis of Martorell or the Lázaro Galdiano Museum.

Nevertheless, despite being praised also by Ceán Bermúdez, who considered them "rare and appreciable", they only began to be known after the publication by Diego Angulo Íñiguez of the two excellent still-lives of meat and fish National Museum of San Carlos of Mexico DF, the only two signed by Cerezo that are conserved, although their incomplete signatures prevent to know the year of its execution, that could be. Of the largest of them, the still life of meat and pottery jar, said Angulo when he announced that it was "one of the most perfect works in this genre has produced Spanish painting", highlighting the wisdom of its composition, without artifice, And the quality of the color in the treatment of the meats and in the yellow of the basket, that reminded to him to the Dutch painting. From the success of these compositions the old copies known are true. Especially interesting, but of mediocre quality, is the copy of the Still Life of fish in the collection Santamarca of Madrid, don
Was attributed to Giuseppe Recco. The painting with which he formed a couple, a second still life of fish attributed in the past to the Neapolitan painter, is, nevertheless, another excellent example of still life of the second half of the XVII century, attributable to Cerezo for the quality of the reds Tinted, with which fresh fish is distinguished, and the way of treating the scales' brilliance and the copper cauldron, with pasty brushstrokes, although the drawing of the marble table where the objects rest is similar to that found in works Of Delight.

Certain similarities with the Mexican still life are also found in the Kitchen Still Life of the Prado Museum, composed of three steps, in the manner of the last examples of John van der Hamen, and with different levels of depth with respect to the pictorial field. Of this piece one of the most complex works of the Madrid painting of still life and of more difficult ascription. The treatment of the brightness and bloody meats, based on sizzling touches of fat and freshly colored, bring the work closer to Mateo Cerezo's way of doing, but they could also remember that of Andrés Deleito and, in short, accuse Madrid root of its execution, with antecedents in the work of Alexander of Loarte, whereas other elements like the dead lamb or the cascade arrangement and the treatment of the plumage of the birds refer to the flamenco still life of Jan Fyt or Frans Snyders.
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