Ribera y yo (Ribera and Me)

Josep Ribera (1591-1652) is considered one of the greatest Baroque painters. There is scarce information about his childhood and training years, only that he was born in the town of Xàtiva, near Valencia. The same place, precisely, where the painter Artur Heras opened his eyes for the first time, and who confesses he could write the story of every name and every house in his small town.

The two artists are separated by more than 300 years, so they never saw the same clouds; however, they remain tied by a very powerful string: the line, whether long or short, the hand draws using any simple tool, and which always surprises us when it becomes a drawing.

Heras decided to spend some time alongside his fellow townsman Ribera. Together, they travel through silent museums, get lost in bustling streets, and even sit at the top of a volcano. After discussing this and that, they go to the shore to watch the waves. This book, which discusses many things, gathers some of the impressions of that trip. / Herrín Hidalgo

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According to the projective geometry that mathematically underpins the Renaissance perspective, two endpoints define a line and every pair of lines intersect at a point. When two lines are parallel, it is said they meet at a point at infinity, known as the “ideal point” or “figurative point”.

Perspective is a drawing technique by means of which it is possible to provoke the effect of distance and depth, and, therefore, of volume and reality. In the Baroque period, Josep Ribera used it to accentuate the drama of the scenes he painted. Artur Heras, an exceptional draughtsman, uses it to approach the life and work of his most illustrious fellow townsman. In this diary, the life journeys of these two men from Xàtiva converge at an ideal line point that only the imagination can credibly represent.

If Plutarch invented the literary genre of parallel lives, establishing specular analogies between an illustrious Greek and a notable Roman, Heras has created in these pages the genre of perpendicular lives, meaning, those that intersect at a point at infinity accessible only through fantasy. This book is the logbook of that unusual and fascinating journey. / Anacleto Ferrer