Juan de Arellano

Juan de Arellano (* 1614 in Santorcaz, † October 13, 1676 in Madrid) was a Spanish still life painter of the Baroque.

De Arellano was baptized on 3 August 1614 Santorcaz. His first training in the field of painting, he should have already received an early age in Alcalá de Henares. In 1636 he was first mentioned as a painter in Madrid, where he was to act from that time until his death, and brought it to some prosperity. He specialized almost entirely on the painting of floral still lifes, which partially made ​​he and the members of his workshop in series. From him only two large-format images with religious motifs without still life context are known, which is quite unusual for a Spanish painter of the time. His clientele were generally court officials or members of the aristocratic upper class.

In his work can be mainly three groups of Blumenstillleben distinguished: flowers in vases, flowers in baskets and garlands of flowers, the latter being either landscapes or allegorical or religious motives enclose that were usually created by other artists. By the latter his work is represented in sacred places. Significant suggestions for his work, he has probably received by the Flemish still life painting. He combined in his paintings usually very adept flowers such as tulips, snowballs, anemones, roses and carnations etc. to arrangements in which sometimes occur up to 50 flower species, which combinations are, however, more is applied to decorative effect back than it around an image of reality is, as it would result from the natural flowering of individual plants. Here Arellano sat often on red and white accents, which are sparingly complemented by blue and yellow tones. Very often he put his creations on a plain -hewn stone base - particularly in the 1660s and 1670s - and a neutral, dark background and put the shadows to the left side of. In the last decade of his work to the image background brightens increasingly. Among the Spanish still life painters of the Baroque period must be counted among the masters of his craft. Pictures of him are now including in the Museo del Prado in Madrid and in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.

Juan de Arellano was married twice and had four sons, who were also active as a painter.