PACHECO, FRANCISCO, an eminent Spanish painter and historian of art, was born at Seville in 1571. His first lessons were received from Luis Fernandez; and from that time he was a busy and zealous student. He pored over the history of painting to learn the precepts and artistic usages of the ancient masters; the stray prints of Raphael that fell in his way were taken as models; and it became his custom never to execute a picture before making two or three studies of the heads and figures. The first engagements of the young artist were in decorative painting. In 1594 he adorned with figures and heraldic bearings the banners of the fleets of New Spain and the mainland; and in 1598 he executed in distemper some of the paintings on the monument erected on the occasion of the funeral honours of Philip II. By this time the peculiar style of Pacheco was beginning to appear and to be appreciated. His composition, though deficient in spirit and vigour, was simple and correct; his colouring, in spite of its harshness and dryness, was never glaringly unnatural; and if among the various provinces of art which he tried he did not shine in any, he made a respectable appearance in all. Accordingly, in the midst of other engagements, he was employed to paint some incidents from the life of St Raymond for the convent of Mercy in 1600, and the fable of Dædalus and Icarus for the palace of the Duke of Alcalá in 1603. It was not long after this that the busiest part of Pacheco's life began. Opening an academy of painting, he was soon engrossed with numerous pupils. At the same time he was expending great labour and patience on his masterpiece, "The Last Judgment," an immense work, which was completed in 1612. Nor did his appointment in 1618 to the office of inquisitor of art, by giving him new employments, lessen his old. More commissions poured in upon him
than he could execute; and he was hired to paint many portraits, both in oil and crayons. In 1623 Pacheco had reached the acme of his reputation; and the latter years of his life began to pass by in the midst of peace and prosperity. Having accompanied his pupil and son-in-law Velasquez to Madrid in that same year, he spent the next two years in mingling with artists and men of letters, and enjoying the striking achievements and rising fortunes of his young relative. On his return to Seville he resigned himself to the pleasures and pursuits of literature. His brush was laid aside; his table was made the rendezvous for all the intellectual among the citizens; he found a refined amusement in the composition of occasional poems; and in 1649, after several years of congenial labour, he gave to the world the fruits of his extensive reading and ripe experience in his most important work, the treatise On the Art of Painting. His death took place in 1654.
The above-mentioned book of Pacheco, though pedantic in its style, prolix in its plan, and absurd in many of its speculations, contains much curious information, and is an invaluable authority on the history of Spanish art. It has never been reprinted, and is now exceedingly scarce. (Stirling's Artists of Spain.)