Juan Zabalo
Session of the Council of Trent, attributed to Juan Zabalo. Oil on canvas, 124 x 266 cm, Borja (Zaragoza), Museum of the Collegiate of Santa Maria.
Juan Zabalo y Navarro (Zaragoza, 1684-1746) was Spanish baroque painter and architect of altarpieces and ephemeral architectures in active wood in Aragon.
His formation begins with his father, who was a carpenter, and in his facet of painter, probably with Jerónimo Secano. In 1712 he married Francisca Ortiz de Baráiz, with whom he had nine children. His daughter Teresa married José Luzán, a prominent painter of the eighteenth century and teacher of Goya. He opened a workshop on Calle Verónica de Zaragoza, where he lived. He was also professor in the Academy of Drawing that had the mazonero sculptor and teacher Juan Ramírez. Its main occupation was that of scenographer and designer of ephemeral altarpieces and architectures, much sought after in the Baroque period, destined to celebrate processions in celebrations or funerals: arches, capelardentes or other realizations that are known through illustrations of the time. Among these architectures can be highlighted the tomb erected in 1714 in Zaragoza on the occasion of the funeral of Maria Luisa de Saboya, the death in 1716 of Louis XIV of France (1716), or that of funerary acts to death in 1745 of King Philip V in churrigueresque Baroque style.
Between 1711 and 1713 he made the monument of Easter and the paintings of the Chapel of San Marcos de la Seo of Zaragoza in which he displayed his dominance of the Binesque trompeto and a theatrical scenery, combining architecture in wood, sculpture and painting, in which it could be his capital work in this area. Other designs of his are the one of the tabernacle that realized in 1720 for the chapel of the Holy Christ of the trascoro of the above mentioned cathedral zaragozana, whose work and sculptures were executed by Juan Ramírez. Later, in 1736 he painted and painted the monument of Easter for the church of the Magdalena of Saragossa. As a painter, it is necessary to point out the pictorial decoration of the organ of La Seo and the mentioned pictorial works of the dome of the Chapel of San Marcos of the Cathedral, consisting of a fresco of angels children who bear the "arms of Christ" ; while the pendants are adorned with allegorical figures of four virtues, the three theologians with the addition of one of the cardinal, Justice. To Juan Zabalo are also due the canvases of the walls that have by matters the Entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem and the Kiss of Judas. Bibliography
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