The Spanish born artist, who was active in Rome and Naples during the first half of the seventeenth-century, has left a series of works that are remarkable for their repetitiveness. Thumbnail photos of his oil paintings in catalogue raisonées betray obsessive repetition. This seminar will consider how figurative iteration, reversibility and material degradation in Ribera’s etchings provided an experimental practice. The seminar will also consider Ribera’s production in light of the late work of Caravaggio in Naples, Sicily and Malta, Ribera’s representation of torture and martyrdom, his graphic procedures, and the politics of representation in viceregal Naples, Imperial Spain and Colonial Latin America.

This course fulfills the following Major requirements: Geographical area (A), and Chronological period (II).