Who Is Josefa De Ayala?

From the Middle age up until the 18th Century, the discourse of the practice of art was predominantly practiced by men. There were only two women recorded down in art historical literature in Spain during that time frame1. One of this women was the famous sculptor Luisa Roldan while the other was Josefa de Ayala, known for her paintings that incorporates a hybrid of styles and a highly personal expression of talents that makes her unique as an artist during that time period. My paper will explore Josefa de Ayala's painting Nativity, done in 1669 and currently displayed at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, to showcase how Ayala became known as an accomplished painter and gained recognition amongst other Baroque painters during an
Her father was a famous Portuguese artist named Baltazar Gomez Figueira. She is one of the few female European painters known to be active in the Baroque era. Most of her artworks were done in Portugal, her father's native country, where she lived from the age of four and conducted her professional life as an artist there. There were records that she had return to her birth country of Seville at one point of her life due to a change in her style of painting and a shift from her subject focus during the period of 1670s2. Her artistic success can also be seen through her acquisition of an array of real-estate holdings3. Unlike other artists during that era, Ayala uses the representations of the Virgin, female Saints and other women which constitutes a large percentage of the figures in her artworks. Many other artists of that period fails to acknowledge women as their subject matter and other female artist had “virtually nothing in terms of subject matter to signal the fact that they were women4. Ayala used of female figures in her art works showcase her stance as a female artist and distinguishes her from other artist. Ayala was largely known for her still-life painters and is a follower of Francisco de Zurbaran. Many of her artwork mimics and/or infuses influence
The drapery and crease of each piece of fabric presented in the painting mimics how clothes in real life will crease and fold. She paints the fabrics such that it falls effortlessly and naturally. Moreover, the way she layers each piece of article, allows one to almost feel/relate how heavy, light or flowy the clothing pieces are. For example, Mary's dress looks like it is made from a thicker material based on how heavy the draping of her clothes fall, the droopy-like effect that weighs the lining of her collar down to how the sleeves of on her arms droop and scrunches together shows a depth towards the material. Similarly, the head scarf of the other woman in the painting, shows a certain lightness and delicateness of the material as it flows beautifully down past her head to her shoulders. Unlike her other artworks with elaborate embroidered garments and jewelries such as pearls20, Ayala kept the clothing of the subjects relatively simple, essentially following the story from the bible of the humbleness that Mary and Joseph are attributed with. The way she depicts the scene of Christ, shows her devoutness as a catholic and her intellectual as a women. Her access to books allowed her to create artworks