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Fernando Gallego
Fernando Gallego
(b Salamanca, fl 1468–1507).
Spanish painter. He was active in Salamanca, at that time an important city due to its double status as episcopal see and university city, but he also worked in the regions of Leon and Extremadura, in such cities as Toro, Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo and Plasencia. Nothing definite is known about his training, but his plastic concept of form and his interest in spatial definition link him to 15th-century Flemish painting, in particular to the style of Rogier van der Weyden and Dieric Bouts the elder. The similarities between his art and that of the latter, who was contemporary with him, point to a possible stay in the Low Countries, although he may also have trained in the circle of Jorge Ingles. Nevertheless, he was an artist of considerable individuality, defined by an excellent mastery of technique and an inventive originality, by his interest in realism and by the characterization of his figures, as well as by an expressiveness similar to that found in the work of Konrad Witz. At times he achieved in his work a dramatic intensity unrivalled in Spanish painting of the period.
La Vierge et l'Enfant au perroquet
Musee du Louvre, Paris
