Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (165513 April 1726) was a Spanish painter of 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 ...

period, and a writer on art, author of ''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica'', which contains a large amount of important biographical material on Spanish artists.

Life

Antonio Palomino was born to a respectable family at Bujalance, near Córdoba in 1655. He studied

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and law at Córdoba, and had lessons in painting from Juan de Valdés Leal, who visited there in 1672, and afterwards from Juan de Alfaro y Gamez in 1675. After taking

minor orders In Christianity, minor orders are ranks of church ministry. In the Catholic Church, the predominating Latin Church formerly distinguished between the major orders—priest (including bishop), deacon and subdeacon—and four minor orders— acolyt ...

Palomino moved to

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 ...

in 1678, where he associated with Alfaro, Claudio Coello, and Juan Carreño de Miranda, and executed some indifferent

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

es. He soon afterwards married a lady of rank, and, having been appointed ''

alcalde ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

'' of the ''

mesta The ''Mesta'' () was a powerful association protecting livestock owners and their animals in the Crown of Castile that was incorporated in the 13th century and was dissolved in 1836. Although best known for its organisation of the annual migrat ...

'', was himself ennobled; in 1688 he was appointed painter to King Charles II.The artist visited

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

in 1697 and remained there for three or four years, devoted to painting the ceilings of the Church of Santos Juanes and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken. Between 1705 and 1715 he spent considerable amounts of time in

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

and Córdoba; in the latter year the first volume of his work on art, ''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica'', appeared in Madrid. He painted the ceiling fresco in the dome of the sacristy of the Cartuja de Granada. After the death of his wife in 1725 Palomino took priest's orders. He died on 13 August 1726.

''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica''

Palomino's ''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica'' first appeared in 1715–24 in a three-volume

folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

edition. The first two parts, on the theory and practice of the art of painting, have had little influence. The third, subtitled ''El Parnaso español pintoresco laureado'', contains a large amount of important biographical material relating to Spanish artists, which, despite its uneven style, has led to the author being called "the Spanish

Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work '' Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ide ...

". It was partially translated into English in 1739 as '' An account of the lives and works of the most eminent Spanish painters, sculptors and architects''; an abridgment of the original (''Las Vidas de los pintores y estatuarios españoles'') was published in London in 1742, and appeared in a French translation in 1749. A

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

version was published at

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

in 1781, and a reprint of the entire work at Madrid in 1797. A modern English translation of the abridgment by Nina Ayala Mallory came out in 1987 from Cambridge University Press ().

References

External links

Las vidas de los pintores y estatuarios eminentes españoles, que con sus heroycas obras, han ilustrado la nacion (Spanish version, published in London in 1742)An account of the lives and works of the most eminent Spanish painters, sculptors and architects, tr. (by U. Price) from the Musæum pictorium (English version, 1739)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palomino, Aciscolo Antonio 1655 births 1726 deaths People from the Province of Córdoba (Spain) Spanish Baroque painters 17th-century Spanish painters Spanish male painters 18th-century Spanish painters 18th-century Spanish male artists Artist authors Spanish art historians Catholic painters