Ribera: Art of Violence review – savage masterpieces lay brutality bare — theguardian.com

What makes the art of 17th-century Europe so universal? This period of religious conflict, revolution, plague and war produced a high proportion of the artists who seem to see most acutely into the human condition. Think of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velázquez ... and Jusepe de Ribera. Dulwich Picture Gallery’s brilliant exposé of this Spanish-born, Italy-based artist’s vision of suffering proves once and for all that he belongs in the same company as the greats. Even Caravaggio never painted anything more insidious than Ribera’s 1637 masterpiece Apollo and Marsyas, the most dazzling of all the horrors lent to this show from great European museums (in this case the Capodimonte in Naples).

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