Bautismo de Cristo por Navarrete el Mudo

Juan Fernández Navarrete (1526 – 28 March 1579), or "de Navarrete", called ''El Mudo'' (The Mute), was a Spanish

Mannerist Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...

painter, born at

Logroño Logroño ( , , ) is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja (Spain), La Rioja, Spain. Located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, primarily in the right (South) bank of the Ebro River, Logroño has historically been a place of pa ...

Biography

An illness in infancy deprived Navarrete of his hearing, which affected his ability to learn to speak. At a very early age he began to express his wants by sketching objects with a piece of

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

. He received his first instructions in art from Fray Vicente de Santo Domingo, a

Hieronymite The Hieronymites or Jeronimites, also formally known as the Order of Saint Jerome (; abbreviated OSH), is a Catholic cloistered religious order and a common name for several congregations of hermit monks living according to the Rule of Saint ...

monk at Estella, and also with

Gaspar Becerra Gaspar Becerra (1520–1568) was a Spanish painter and sculptor of the School of Valladolid. Biography He was born at Baeza, Spain, Baeza in the Province of Jaén (Spain), Province of Jaén. He went to Rome in 1545, and studied with Giorgio Vas ...

. He visited

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

and

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Pellegrino Tibaldi San Sebastiano (Milan) Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527, Valsolda - 27 May 1596, Milan), also known as Pellegrino di Tibaldo de Pellegrini, was an Italian mannerist architect, sculptor, and mural painter. Biography Tibaldi was born in Puria di Valsolda ...

met him in Rome in 1550. According to most accounts he was for a considerable time the pupil and assistant of

Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. In 1568 Philip II of Spain summoned him to Madrid with the title of king's painter and a salary, and employed him to execute pictures for the Escorial. During the 1560s and 1570s the huge monastery-palace of El Escorial was still under construction and Philip II was experiencing difficulties in finding good artists for the many large paintings required to decorate it. Titian was very old, and died in 1576, and Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Veronese and Anthonis Mor all refused to come to Spain. Philip had to rely on the lesser talent of Navarrete, whose ''gravedad y decoro'' ("seriousness and decorum") the king approved. For eleven years until his death Navarrete worked largely on El Escorial.Trevor-Roper, Hugh; ''Princes and Artists, Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts 1517-1633'', Thames & Hudson, London, 1976, pp. 62-68 The most celebrated of the works he produced there are a "Nativity of Jesus in art, Nativity" (in which, as in the well-known work on the same subject by Antonio da Correggio, Correggio, the light emanates from the infant Saviour), a "Baptism of Christ" (now Prado), and
Abraham Receiving the Three Angels
(one of his last works, dated 1576, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin). He executed many other altar-pieces, all characterized by boldness and freedom in design, and by the rich warm colouring which has acquired for him the surname of "the Spanish Titian." He died at the age of 52 or 53 in Toledo, Spain, Toledo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Navarrette, Juan Fernandez 1526 births 1579 deaths 16th-century Spanish painters Spanish male painters People from Logroño Mannerist painters Deaf artists Spanish deaf people Catholic painters