Francisco Pacheco (bap. 3 November 1564 – 27 November 1644) was a
Spanish painter, best known as the teacher of
Diego Velázquez and
Alonso Cano, and for his textbook on painting that is an important source for the study of 17th-century practice in Spain. He is described by some as the
Vasari of Seville: voluble and didactic about his theories of painting and thoughts about painters, conventional and uninspired in his executions
He was born at
Sanlúcar de Barrameda, son of Juan Pérez and wife Leonor del Río, and moved to
Seville at a young age. He was a student of
Luis Fernandez, and did much of his learning by copying works of the Italian masters. He visited
Madrid and
Toledo in 1611, studying the work of
El Greco, then returned to Seville and opened an art school. He married ... de Miranda and had one daughter, Juana Pacheco (1 June 1602 – 10 August 1660).
Pacheco's school emphasized the academically correct representation of religious subjects, not least because he was the official censor of Seville's
Inquisition. His own work reflects those constraints; paintings such as the
Last Judgment (convent of Santa Isabel) and
Martyrs of Granada are monumental in scale but unimaginative in treatment.
Although Velázquez was a student in Pacheco's school for six years, and married Pacheco's daughter Juana in 1618, there is no trace of Pacheco's...
Read More