Juan de Solís (c.1598 - 30 September 1654,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

) was a Spanish painter and

scenographer A scenographer or scenic designer, also production designer, is a person who develops the appearance of a stage design, a TV or movie set, a gaming environment, a trade fair exhibition design or a museum experience exhibition design. The term ori ...

in the

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

style. He spent much of his career in the service of King Philip IV. Only a few of his works have been preserved. His son,

Francisco Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Meaning of the name Francisco In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco (name), Paco". Francis of Assisi, San Francisco de A ...

, also became a painter.

Biography

According to a treatise by

Antonio Palomino Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (165513 April 1726) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, and a writer on art, author of ''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica'', which contains a large amount of important biographical mate ...

, Solís was born into a noble family. This has not been corroborated. Ceán Bermúdez says that he learned painting from Alonso de Herrera in

Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is located in the Meseta central, Inner Pl ...

.Ceán Bermúdez, ''Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores de la Bellas Artes en España'', 1800 He was already established as a painter by 1630, when he took

Juan de Arellano Juan de Arellano (3 August 1614 – 13 October 1676) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque era who specialized in floral still life paintings. Biography Born in Santorcaz, near Madrid, where he died. He was a pupil of Juan de Solís. Heavily ...

into his workshop as a student.Diego Angulo Íñiguez and Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, ''Pintura madrileña del segundo tercio del siglo XVII'', 1983, Instituto Diego Velázquez Around 1636, he began working as a

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

, creating stage decorations at the

Buen Retiro Palace Buen Retiro Palace (Spanish: ''Palacio del Buen Retiro'') in Madrid was a large palace complex designed by the architect (c. 1590–1660) and built on the orders of Philip IV of Spain as a secondary residence and place of recreation (hence its ...

. He made his name in this genre with a series of scenes to celebrate a visit by Francesco I, the Duke of Modena.Ana María Sánchez Salcedo,
Nuevos datos sobre Juan de Solís, pintor, escenógrafo y decorador en la Corte de Felipe IV
', Anales de Historia del Arte (UCM) vol. 5 (1995). In 1637, he created a landscape with figures, including one of

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Gre ...

, for Hermitage of La Magdalena at the palace. Such landscapes make up most of his work that has survived. Especially notable is a series depicting saints who were hermits. In 1639, he was commissioned by

Luis Fernández Luis Miguel Fernández Toledo (born 2 October 1959), known as Luis Fernandez, is a French football manager and former player who played as a defensive midfielder. Fernandez spent most of his playing career for Paris Saint-Germain. He earned ...

to gild the altarpiece, decorate the Camarín de la Virgen, and paint some angels in the

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', 'little moon') is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be ...

s at the Iglesia del Buen Suceso, which was demolished in 1854. A year later, he created some decorations for Buen Retiro, for which he was named "Painter to the Queen". Aother notable commission came from the

Protonotary A prothonotary is the "principal clerk of a court," from L.L. ''prothonotarius'' ( c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine Empire, from Greek ' ''protos ...

Aragón Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to south): Huesca, Zaragoza, a ...

, . This was a rendering of ''

Saint Benedict Benedict of Nursia (; ; 2 March 480 – 21 March 547), often known as Saint Benedict, was a Great Church, Christian monk. He is famed in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Old ...

and King

Totila Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War (535–554), Gothic War, recovering b ...

'' for the choir of the Convent of San Plácido. In 1647, as the Queen's painter, he signed a contract to decorate the chapel of Virgen del Amparo in

Colmenar de Oreja Colmenar de Oreja is a town and municipality of the Las Vegas comarca, in the Community of Madrid, Spain. It was subject to a seven-month siege in 1139. Location It is located in the hydrographic plateau of the rivers Tagus and Tajuña, a ...

. By 1654, he was blind. Shortly before his death, he named his former student, Juan de Arellano, and the engraver, , as the executors of his estate. His assets were few.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Solis, Juan de 1590s births 1654 deaths Spanish painters Spanish scenic designers Religious artists Artists from Madrid

Biography

References

Further reading

External links