Ribera’s Technique: A Practical Guide to His Painting Process
A post written by Borja Perez Mielgo
Polygynotos by Borja
Although it may seem strange to many figurative painters in Florence today, immersed in the resurgence of classical painting and sculpture, the artistic influence of José de Ribera (1591–1652) began to reemerge in the late 20th century after a period of relative obscurity. I say “relative” because artists such as the French painters Léon Bonnat and Théodule Ribot, as well as the Spaniard Ignacio Zuloaga, were profoundly familiar with Ribera’s work and were influenced by it. However, his true reappreciation came with the rediscovery of Caravaggio, particularly following the landmark exhibition curated by Roberto Longhi in Milan in 1951. This event not only brought Caravaggio back into the spotlight but also shed light on his followers, Ribera among them. In 1992, a major retrospective that traveled through New York, Madrid, and Naples established Jusepe de Ribera—the most widely accepted form of his name—as one of the great titans of Mediterranean and global Baroque art.
I was just a child when that exhibition came to Spain, but I vividly remember the documentaries on the Golden Age masters that aired on television during the 1990s. In a Spain undergoing dynamic social and economic change, names like Zurbarán, El Greco, Murillo, and, of course, the most celebrated, Velázquez, appeared frequently on TV and in newspapers. Among those fleeting and often random images, I occasionally glimpsed Ribera’s dark and tortured saints—figures whose intense contrasts of light and shadow intimidated me as a boy growing up in sunny, cheerful Málaga. His extreme forms and suffering characters seemed distant from the bright Mediterranean I called home. Yet, as is often the case, the forbidden is the most enticing, and so began a strange, gradual, and obsessive interest in the painter from Játiva. I remember one afternoon with my father, leafing through old books on the Golden Age. While searching for Ribera’s works, I noticed that the hands he painted bore an uncanny resemblance to my father’s: rough, bony, worn, yet still elegant and refined. “Look at how he brutalizes those hands, dirties them, and yet dignifies them at the same time,” my father remarked. In my adolescent arrogance, I replied, “No one paints like that anymore.” He looked at me and, knowing I aspired to be a painter, said, “Well, that’s up to you.” I tried to distance myself from Ribera, focusing instead on other artists—Titian, Delacroix, Goya—because his darkness and mystery challenged me more than they inspired me.
Copy of Ribera’s St. Bartholomew by Borja.
Today, my father is no longer here, and perhaps years later, I finally accepted the challenge. After training at the Florence Academy, I began to research how to paint like Ribera, knowing his influence would help me find my own artistic voice. It was in Italy that I felt deeply connected to Jusepe de Ribera. He himself was a man out of place: born in Spain, he passed through Parma and Rome before settling in Naples, where he lived until his death. He was poor and rich, famous and ignored, praised and reviled. Although in his time southern Italy, parts of Milan and Tuscany, Spain, and Portugal were part of the vast “Hispanic World” under the Catholic Spanish Monarchy, Ribera’s context anticipated, in some ways, our modern world: a multicultural, diverse, and multilingual mosaic. Beyond Lord Byron’s famous comment describing him as a painterwho “dipped his brushes in the blood of saints,” Ribera emerges as a nomadic artist—not entirely Spanish, nor entirely Italian. This ambiguity has fueled debates: the Italians claim that all his production took place in Italy, where he adopted local trends and techniques, including drawing, which was less common among Spanish painters. For this reason, many place him within the pantheon of great Italian artists. The Spaniards, on the other hand, argue that his themes, his patrons, and his aggressive naturalism align him more closely with Velázquez than with Guido Reni or Massimo Stanzione—not to mention his signature, which always affirmed his Spanish origins. For my part, having traversed Spain, Wales, Scotland, and Italy in search of a figurative training largely forgotten in recent times, I found in Ribera not only an artistic model but also an example for life: a nomadic painter. After graduating from the Florence Academy, I embarked on a new artistic journey to Madrid, where I had the privilege of becoming an official copyist at the Prado Museum.
Borja working on the copy of St. Bartholomew in Room 8 of the Prado Museum.
My first task was to replicate Ribera’s Saint Bartholomew in Room 8—a work recommended by Daniel Graves, the Academy’s founder and director. This painting encapsulates, one could say, all the elements that define Ribera’s art: his rawness, his technical mastery, and his ability to dignify the rough. Yet, when confronting it, I encountered a paradox: while his work is well-preserved in Naples and Madrid, there is remarkably little documentation on his technique. There are no manuals, treatises, or letters revealing his palette, oils, or grounds. In contrast, artists like Rembrandt, Velázquez, or Caravaggio benefit from numerous digital resources and specialized workshops. Why is this? Perhaps because, as I mentioned earlier, Ribera does not fully belong to any national tradition. He is not a cultural hero like Velázquez is for Spain or Caravaggio for Italy, and his figure has yet to achieve the global recognition it deserves—though this is slowly changing.
While painting the copy, I delved into a near-obsessive search. I scoured the internet for information, pored over restoration books, and consulted with the Prado’s restoration department. My challenge was not just to replicate the work visually—its stains, tones, and colors—but to do so using materials as close as possible to those Ribera would have used: his canvas, his ground, his pigments. Does it matter if I use vermilion or red orce instead of modern cadmium red? Yes, it does. Especially in today’s resurgence of classical figurative painting, where knowledge of the old masters is deeply valued in Florence’s circle of painters. Ribera absorbed many influences during his time in the dynamic Rome of his era.
I consulted several sources for this research, including a late biography by the Neapolitan Bernardo de Dominici and his "Vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti napoletani" written between 1742 and 1745. I also reviewed renowned 17th-century treatises that mention Jusepe de Ribera, such as Carducho's "Diálogos de la pintura"(1633), G. Hidalgo's "Principios para estudiar el arte de la pintura" (1691), and Antonio Palomino's "El Parnaso español, museo pintoresco laureado" (1724). In addition, I examined countless letters and correspondences, all supported by the work of notable scholars such as Nicola Spinosa, Gianni Papi, and Javier Portús, among others.
Based on this research, I concluded that Ribera would have followed these steps when creating a painting:
The Support
Ribera used various canvases available in Naples, such as linen or loosely woven taffeta. First, he applied rabbit skin glue and two layers of priming. Then, he prepared the ground using pigments such as raw umber, vine black, or other carbon blacks, along with red ochre and yellow ochre. He added calcite and some lead white in a third layer, applied with a palette knife, resulting in a dense and absorbent surface. Depending on the subject, quartz and red clay were also incorporated. This neutral ground allowed for shadow work and the addition of impasto to the highlights.
The Drawing
When starting to paint, he used a medium composed of walnut oil mixed with lavender essence. The initial drawing was made with a natural earth pigment —in my case, Cassel Brown, a tone between raw umber and burnt umber— and was aided by diluted charcoal. Infrared imaging has revealed that Ribera used charcoal washes for sketching and lead white to define certain areas where highlights would later be added. The drawings were minimal, outlining only the most basic shapes of the figure (aboso), yet his compositions were based on detailed preparatory sketches, rarely deviating from them.
In his workshop, Ribera kept templates and drawings ready to be transferred onto new canvases, which explains the striking similarity between many of his works and their rapid execution. According to Dominici, Ribera could complete a figure in an entire day's work.
The Painting Process
Once the drawing was fixed using raw umber or a similar pigment, details were refined with charcoal and a fine brush with lead white. Ribera would then loosely begin building up highlights. His technique involved meticulous application of impasto, focusing on manipulating materials to create intense and expressive textures. According to references such as the Colnaghi Studies Journal, Ribera applied impasto using brushes and palette knives, creating thick layers of paint that allowed for sculptural effects on specific elements, such as wrinkles or musculature.
He began with a dark tonal base, layering pigments progressively to adjust lights and shadows, achieving dramatic contrasts and a sense of realism. He employed oils that enhanced the flow and adhesion of impasto, making textures visible even from a distance. For finer details, he used stiff-bristle brushes, while larger areas, such as backgrounds or architectural elements, were primarily worked with a palette knife.
To maintain the outline of the head, he painted a halo of lead white around it, which he later covered with the background color —a feature still visible to the naked eye today.
The Palette
Ribera’s palette was surprisingly limited. Unlike Caravaggio, Velázquez, or Rembrandt, it was challenging to identify his exact pigments, fearing that specific ones might elude me. Eventually, I identified that his black was vine black, a moderately cool gray that works well to mute skin tones without muddying them. This pigment, used since classical antiquity, was described by Pliny as ampelitis or "vine earth."
Ribera's Baroque palette, inspired by Caravaggio and designed for dramatic effect, consisted of two types of pigments:
Iron oxide colors: red ochre, orange ochre, yellow ochre.
Mineral pigments: vermilion, lead-tin yellow, lead white, organic carbon black, and verdigris.
Lead White: The most important of all white pigments, lead carbonate was historically the only white used in European easel painting until the 19th century.
Yellow Ochre: A rich, golden yellow, semi-opaque pigment with a buttery consistency.
Red Ochre (possibly Venetian Red): A deep red earth pigment with a pinkish undertone, less violet than other iron oxide reds.
Cinnabar or Vermilion: A vivid orange-red made from artificially produced mercuric sulfide.
For auxiliary colors, verdigris and azurite were occasionally used to detail elements like laurel crowns, garments, or foliage.
Verdigris: Once the most vibrant green available until the 19th century, verdigris was frequently used despite its toxicity.
Azurite: A natural copper carbonate, varying from deep blue to bluish-green, depending on purity and particle size.
Mediums and Binders
Ribera's paint layers reveal the use of walnut oil as the primary binding medium, sometimes mixed with a small amount of linseed oil to accelerate drying. For highlights and impasto areas, he combined oils with lead powder, increasing the paint’s density and allowing it to hold its shape. For glazes, he likely used walnut oil mixed with pine resin or mastic, creating a translucent layer that enriched the depth and brilliance of the painting. These glazes were applied over the base colors to adjust tonal values and enhance chiaroscuro effects.
Impasto and Textures
Ribera’s paintings are characterized by expressive textures, particularly in flesh tones and fabrics. Using the palette knife, he achieved thick, raised areas of paint for highlights on skin, hair, and drapery, adding a tactile quality to his works. This impasto technique was combined with subtle blending in the shadows, creating a striking contrast that emphasized the drama and realism of his compositions.
Infrared reflectography has also revealed how Ribera layered his pigments strategically. For instance, he applied a semi-opaque layer of lead white mixed with yellow ochre for highlights, followed by thin glazes of vermilion or red ochre to warm up the flesh tones.
As for the technique, let us allow the sources to speak on how Ribera painted. Thus writes Dominici and Pacheco:
"...He wielded the fierceness of Caravaggio with a preference for the natural, and the fine coloring of the Lombard school, thereby forging a manner all his own. (...) He painted in the style of Caravaggio while adding impasto to the color, and (...) his impasto was so dense and rich that it seemed to make the muscles of the human body twist, as well as the bones of the hands and feet, which he rendered with great diligence. (...) His coloring is so true and with such force in the impasto that it deceives the eye, giving the impression that the brushstrokes themselves turn."
— Bernardo Dominici
"Relief is the most important of the three parts that constitute coloring, for it gives to what is painted the appearance of roundness and substance, as if natural, deceiving the eye into believing the forms emerge from the canvas. This is evident in the works of Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Domenico Greco, and the great José de Ribera, called Lo Spagnoletto. In many of his paintings, one sees that he dispensed with the first two parts of coloring—beauty and softness—and sought only effect and fierceness."
— Antonio Pacheco
Aging and Varnishing
Ribera's works often exhibit a warm, golden patina due to the natural aging of the oil medium and varnishes. He used a final varnish layer composed of mastic or dammar resin, providing a glossy finish that protected the painting and enhanced the depth of colors. However, over time, this varnish has yellowed, altering the original tonal balance.
Conclusion and thoughts
When I first began my journey at the Prado Museum, I wasn’t fully aware of all these aspects. Certainly, colleagues like Jesús Carrasco, fellow copyists at the Prado, guided me by pointing out useful archives—now online—and who to speak with. But the truly cathartic part of the Prado experience was confronting all these doubts on my own. My three years at the Florence Academy of Art had trained my eye and deepened my understanding of the painterly vocabulary. Now, I had to put that knowledge into practice, without a tutor behind me to correct my mistakes. There was no Marco Franco or Nick Chaundy, dear friends, colleagues, and teachers from my time at the Academy, standing by to point out errors. Much of what I learned, I absorbed through direct application in Room 8 of the Prado.
The canvas I used wasn’t taffeta but linen. My drawing was less refined and more schematic in the Florentine academic style. Only midway through did I discover walnut oil and lavender essence as mediums, and I never employed a palette knife. Additionally, painting at the Prado wasn’t the same as working in a private studio; any mistake could risk damaging the original works, so I had to temper my expressiveness. Another concern was avoiding spills or stains on the protective covers under the easels. One afternoon, after ten minutes of focused work, I realized I had accidentally stepped on a spot of vermilion and, in pacing back and forth to check my progress, left a trail of red footprints across the room. Hastily, I removed my shoe, located the room attendant—who hadn’t noticed and was making rounds elsewhere—and gestured an apology toward the security camera before cleaning the floor myself. The rest of the day passed as usual, amidst the bustling tourists, official visits, and curious onlookers.
Back in Florence, after giving a lecture at the Florence Academy of Art gallery alongside its director, Tom Richards, it was time to apply all I had learned to my own artistic practice. This took some time—first sourcing materials, preparing canvases, and experimenting with oils. Two of my students, who attended classes at my studio in the Budini Gattai palace in Florence, witnessed the start of a painting I worked on with my friend and colleague Jannik. This encouraged them to explore the Baroque method, moving away from the more academic, 19th-century French approach. Jannik helped me prepare rabbit skin glue and gesso suggested using the Venetian-style . He also assisted with mounting the canvases on frames using nails. I painted him as an ancient classical painter—like Polygnotus, a Greek artist adopted by 5th-century Athens, considered by literary tradition to be one of the first great painters of antiquity.
On that canvas, I began applying Ribera’s style on a larger scale, experimenting further, including with a self-portrait that became a study for a grander, Apelles-inspired self-portrait. The fruits of these efforts culminated in my most recent work, completed just in time for the exhibition In the Light of Florence, organized by PNEUMA and curated by Luna Gordon and Andrés Escalante. For this, Nick Chaundy posed as a Zeuxis, the Greek painter who, according to Pliny the Elder, rivaled the Athenian Parrhasius in a legendary contest to determine the greatest artist. Marco Franco would represent Parrhasius. I envisioned my fellow sculptors and painters portrayed in Ribera’s manner, as Greek painters or even as early Italians, like Giotto or Cimabue.This theme is neither innocent nor incidental. It testifies to and honors, in the Renaissance Italian tradition, the artists working in Florence today, pioneers of a nascent movement whose full development and blossoming are yet to be seen.
With all this research, I achieved my goal: to organize Ribera’s technique almost as if it were a recipe manual. This knowledge not only brought me closer to his art but also allowed me to adapt it to my own style and vision. In the first stage of life, one learns. It is a time for humility, for absorbing knowledge, techniques, and lessons perfected by others before us. But there comes a moment, in the second stage, to put all that learning into practice, to find your place and leave your mark. Finally, in the last stage, the cycle completes: all that accumulated knowledge must be shared, given back to the world to inspire others. In some ways, I shared this knowledge with my peers and colleagues in Florence, but I also wish to share it with anyone interested in exploring the work and techniques of this nomadic painter. Today, Ribera is more fashionable than ever. This is confirmed by the success of the new exhibition Ribera: Darkness and Light, held from November 5, 2024, to February 23, 2025, at the Petit Palais in Paris. This recognition demonstrates that his art transcends any national classification: Ribera is not solely Spanish or Italian—he is universal.