FRANCISCO PACHECO (1647)

Painter, teacher and scholar.

An undistinguished artist he is best remembered as the teacher of both Velázquez and Alonso Cano and as the author of Arte de la pintura (1649), a treatise on the art of painting that is the most important document for the study of 17th-century Spanish art.

Moving to Seville early in his life he studied painting under Luis Fernández learning primarily by copying the work of Italian Renaissance masters.

After visiting in 1611 Madrid and Toledo where he studied the work of El Greco he returned to Sevilla and opened an academy.
His instructions were marked by an emphasis on academic correctness.
The official censor of the Inquisition in Sevilla he concerned himself with the proper way of depicting religious themes and images.

His paintings such as the Last Judgement (1614) in the convent of Santa Isabel and the Martyrs of Granada are highly imitative and rigid works, monumental but unimpressive.

Although Velázquez became Pacheco´s son-in-law he was uninfluenced by his father-in-law´s art.

Pacheco´s Arte de la pintura in addition to chapters on iconography and the theory and practice of painting includes a series of biographies of contemporary Spanish painters that is most valuable to scholars.