Artist Birthday: José Campeche y Jordán

As with portraiture in mainland Spanish colonial cultures, wealthy Puerto Ricans emulated their European counterparts in the never-ending obsession of Spanish colonials that they were “pure Spanish” descent. This portrait of a wealthy young woman has all the allusions to refinement and status as Peruvian and Mexican portraits of the period. It reflects the Spanish Rococo style as seen in the court portraits of such Spanish artists as Francisco de Goya (1746–1828). Its stiffness, formulaic features, and inaccurate scale of the figures does not actually reflect the refined, graceful portrait style of Paret y Alcazár, his mentor.

Artist birthday for December 3rd: José Campeche y Jordán (1751–1809, Puerto Rico)

José Campeche y Jordán brought Rococo glamour to portraits of the Spanish elite of Puerto Rico.

José Campeche y Jordán, Doña Maria Catalina de Urrutia, 1788. Oil on wood panel, 20 ½" x 11 ¼" (52 x 28.6 cm). Formerly image © Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico. (PON-3)

Maria Catalina de Urrutia was the wife of the governor general of Puerto Rico, daughter of a wealthy Cuban family, and the center of “high society” in San Juan. She displays the then-fashionable French head adornment known as a bonnet à la notable. This portrait is actually an exact copy – right down to the background elements (which are painted in a more sophisticated manner than the figures, reflecting Paret y Alcazár’s influence), outfit and pose of a portrait of the woman from 1788. The elaborate Rococo pedestal on which she leaned in that portrait (now in the Hispanic Society of America Museum, New York), has been replaced by a child she had had in the interim. The Rococo is further emphasized by the gilt, rocaille mirror frame in the background.

Archeologists have found traces of human settlement on Puerto Rico since at least 2000 BCE. Between the 800s to 1000s CE an Arawak Indian culture developed, the Taino. The Taino were the dominant culture by 1000. Columbus encountered the Taino when he landed on the island in 1493.

By 1508 the island had been colonized by the Spanish. The Spanish forced the Taino into slave labor for them, and their culture was soon decimated by diseases introduced by the Europeans. The Spanish began importing African slaves in the 1700s to replace the dwindling Taino culture.

José Campeche y Jordán was the son of an African slave who bought his freedom and a white mother. A mixed-race person in a society that was dominated by illusions of racial purity, from these inauspicious beginnings he rose to become the most celebrated Puerto Rican artist of the 1700s. His father worked as a gilder, decorator and painter, where Campeche most likely learned how to paint.

Although Campeche could not afford to go to Spain to learn current painting style, he was able to adapt the Spanish Rococo style (in turn influenced by French Rococo tastes) from the Spanish exiled court painter Luis Paret y Alcázar (1746–1799).  Campeche’s palette lightened and his drawing became considerably more fluid and refined after 1775, the first year of Paret’s exile. He may have even assisted Paret in religious commissions for the Cathedral of San Juan.

Campeche achieved renown in many areas, including architecture and music. He even designed fireworks celebrations and funeral processions. Although he painted many religious scenes, he is most famous for his portraits of the elite of Puerto Rican society.