MELÉNDEZ, Luis

Luis Mel�ndez trained under his father Francisco Antonio Mel�ndez (1682-1752), a specialist royal portrait miniaturist, who was instrumental in the encouragement of Philip V to establish an academy of fine arts in Madrid, which he eventually founded in 1744, making the artist an honorary director of painting. Luis Mel�ndez was one of the first students admitted into the new academy (which was later named the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1753), where he rapidly excelled in the art of drawing, an event celebrated in his handsome self-portrait (and remarkably the only known portrait by Mel�ndez) of 1746, now in the Mus�e du Louvre, Paris. The highly accomplished skill displayed in this portrait reflects the experience gained by the artist during his apprenticeship to the royal portrait painter Louis-Michel van Loo from 1738 until 1744.

The artist holds one of his drawings.

Mel�ndez’s still-lifes are noted for their solid outline, ordered composition, and intense realism. This picture represents a still-life of sea bream and oranges.

The picture represents a still-life of a box of sweets, pastry and other objects.

Mel�ndez’s still lifes, like this one, are simple compositions representing everyday objects with a monumentality and rigour that mark a sharp contrast with their ordinariness. Obsessed with meaningful details and different textures, he turned to motifs such as fruit, pots and pans, bread, vegetables, etc., arranging them in infinite variations. A number of his still lifes dated from 1750 to 1778 have survived.

This still-life depicts a slice of salmon, a lemon and three vessels.

In 1771 the artist received a commission from the young Prince of Asturias, the future Charles IV, to paint a series of still-lifes to decorate his cabinet of natural history, a private museum in his quarters in the Royal Palace. He executed a series of forty four still-lifes (now in various museums).

The present work represents a still-life of apricots in a ceramic bowl, with branches of apricots and their foliage protruding outwards, together with cherries and a single branch of apricots, all arranged upon a plain table top. It was almost certainly painted the year after the artist’s completion of the majority of the series of still-lifes for the Prince of Asturias, in 1773.

This still-life depicts quinces, pears, a plum, a bunch of red grapes, green grapes, a terracotta jug and a ceramic cup, all arranged upon a table top. It is painted entirely within the artist’s own personal and distinctive style and bears all of the characteristics for which Mel�ndez is today ranked among the finest still-life painters of the 18th century.

Like the apple in the works of Baschenis and C�zanne, the melon - in numerous varieties - is a leitmotif that “rolls” through Mel�ndez’s still-lifes. One of the painter’s most sophisticated compositions is Still-Life with Cantaloup Melon, in which he proves himself a fanatic when it comes to rounded forms. He devotes himself to natural produce and man-made items with equal enthusiasm, piling them one behind or on top of the other and thereby filling the pictorial space. Plates, a white cloth, bread and a knife rise above the top of the woven basket into which they have been packed. The objects are painted in close-up and brought right to the front edge of the table, so that the melon curves forward into the space occupied by the viewer. The different surfaces are perfectly imitated and the painting of the melon skin, with its strikingly reticular texture, is astounding. Some objects reflect the light while others absorb it; light assumes the function of a sculptural material. A sense of spirited dynamism arises out of the alternate enlargement and reduction in scale of the pictorial objects.

In 1753, after four years in the Eternal City, Mel�ndez was recalled by his father to assist with a prestigious commission from Ferdinand VI to illuminate a new set of choir books for the Royal Chapel, to replace those lost in the fire of the Alc�zar in 1734. Despite the high acclaim which his illuminations (which show early signs of his skilful depiction of inanimate objects) received at court, Luis’ subsequent four petitions to be appointed royal painter were declined by Charles III. It seems likely that Mel�ndez’s archaic miniaturist style and lack of experience beyond that specialised work counted against him, at a time when the royal court required artists adept in producing large-scale works in fresco and canvas (such as Corrado Giaquinto) to decorate the new Palacio Real, as well as proven portrait painters to promote the recent accesion of Charles III in 1759. On completion of his royal illuminations it appears that Mel�ndez received no further commissions at court and as a result the artist began to turn in desperation to the subject which ironically would earn him enduring international fame - still-life painting.

It is no co-incidence therefore that the artist’s earliest known still-lifes date from around 1759-60. Despite the important tradition of still-life painting during the Spanish Golden Age, the genre had dramatically declined by the second half of the 18th century, with none of the court painters being regular practicioners of the art. For Mel�ndez, still-lifes were a relatively easy commodity to sell, and would typically have been painted on speculation of finding a buyer (rather than on commission). It seems that during the 1760s and 1770s he largely cornered the market in Madrid, being the only significant still-life painter working there at that time.

This still-life is from the mature period of the artist. In the foreground three peaches, one pear and a plate of cherries can be seen. Behind them, in a neutral background a fine blue and white ceramic pitcher is placed. The table is lighted from the left resulting in strong shadows.

Luis Egidio Mel�ndez is the most important Spanish still-life painter of the 18th century. He saw his bodegones as part of an ambitious project. In a petition addressed to King Charles III in 1772, he wrote that he was planning a series of paintings for a cabinet that would illustrate all the different foodstuffs produced by the Spanish climate over the four seasons in the four elements. Up to this point he had only finished those showing the fruits of the earth. He had the means neither to continue the project, however, nor indeed to feed himself.

It seems somewhat unlikely that Mel�ndez planned his still-lifes as a coherent programme right from the outset; rather, he must have arrived at this idea as time went by and he found himself in possession of a sizeable stock of unsold pictures of food and household utensils. During these years he supplied 44 still-lifes to Prince Carlos of Asturia, the later King Charles IV. The paintings went first to the newly built Casita del Pr�ncipe, a country villa near the Escorial de Abajo. Around 1800 they hung in the dining room in the royal palace in Aranjuez.

Judged the most talented student in the Spanish Royal Academy in 1745, Mel�ndez was expelled in 1748 as a result of a public dispute between the Academy and his father, also a painter. The expulsion prevented the artist from receiving commissions for altarpieces or large narrative pictures. In the last twenty years of his life he executed a hundred or so still lifes, for which he has now become famous. Although nearly half were first recorded in the Spanish royal residence at Aranjuez, they may not have been commissioned by the king directly from the painter, who died in poverty.

This picture is one of a group of the artist’s largest and finest works, perhaps made in connection with his second petition to the king to become court painter. Like most of Mel�ndez’s still lifes, it focuses attention simultaneously on the geometrical forms of the homely and characteristically Spanish objects depicted - oranges, walnuts, a melon, wooden sweet boxes and barrel, terracotta jugs - and on their surface texture, and both shape and texture are revealed through the strong light falling from the upper left of the painting. The colours are restricted to black, white and a range of earth tones, relieved only by the brilliant orange. The spectator’s viewpoint, so close to the picture surface, is located just above the smaller of the two jugs. Only the cracked walnuts allow us a glimpse of their edible flesh, among the unpeeled fruit and the sealed containers of sweetmeats, olives and oil, tantalisingly displayed humble products of Spanish soil and industry, ennobled by the artist’s brush.