NARRATOR:
The painter and printmaker Jusepe de Ribera created this canvas around 1615. Among his earliest known works, it was one of a famous series depicting the five senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch.
In The Sense of Touch, a blind man explores the head of an antique sculpture, unable to see the painted portrait on the table next to him. He is dressed like a scholar in a brown smock and pointed black cap, his time-worn face beautifully outlined against the dark background. Notice how the artist captured the delicate wrinkles on his forehead the shine on his cheek even the dirt under his fingernails.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the senses were usually represented as allegorical figures, often female. Ribera, however, intended more than a mere illustration of “touch.” By placing the small, unframed canvas on the table, he invited a comparison between the visual and tactile, between painting and sculpture—a reference, perhaps, to the rivalry between the arts that dominated aesthetic debate at the time.
Though Spanish, Ribera spent virtually all his career in Italy, and his art reflects the major artistic developments there. His early works betray the influence of Caravaggio in their dramatic effects of light and shadow, dark colors, and naturalistic style. In his later years, Ribera blended elements of Venetian and Northern European art to create highly personal compositions that influenced painting long after his death in 1652.
The Sense of Touch
c. 1615-16
Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591-1652)
On View
Seated at a wooden table, a blind man uses his hands to thoughtfully perceive a carved head, while a painting rests beside him, unnoticed. By depicting the sense of touch in this way, Jusepe de Ribera engaged in a long-standing debate over the merits of sculpture versus painting. Sculpture was considered the most accessible of the arts, since it could be understood through touch and vision. In his naturalistic rendering of the sculpture, however, Ribera also made a case for the virtuosity of painting. The artist used paint to create effects of texture and weight, emphasizing the man’s wrinkled hands supporting the heavy bust. Through vision, the painting appeals to the sense of touch, inviting viewers to imagine the sculpture’s smooth contours under their own fingertips.
Details
- Artist Name: Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591-1652)
- Title: The Sense of Touch
- Date: c. 1615-16
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 45-5/8 x 34-3/4 in. (115.9 x 88.3 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1965.1.052.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
?Feliks Feliksovich Iusupov, Kniaz’ (1887-1967), Moscow and St. Petersburg (until 1919), and Paris.
(sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 9 April 1953, lot 194, as Spanish School, XVII Century, The Sculptor–Sense of Touch, to);
[Duveen Bros., New York, stock no. 30164, as Antonio de Puga, later changed to Pietro Novelli; sold, as Pietro Novelli, 1965 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
(sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 9 April 1953, lot 194, as Spanish School, XVII Century, The Sculptor–Sense of Touch, to);
[Duveen Bros., New York, stock no. 30164, as Antonio de Puga, later changed to Pietro Novelli; sold, as Pietro Novelli, 1965 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
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