Sun-ripened succulence: Caroline Worthington reviews the exhibition of Luis Melendez's sensuous still lifes at the National Gallery of Ireland

Luis Melendez described his works as 'an amusing cabinet with all impressed signs of foodstuffs that the Spanish climate produces' A feast of forty paintings by dint of the great Spanish still-life painter (1716-80) filled with orb of day ripened oranges, watermelons, pears, and fruit of the plum-trees can be enjoyed at an exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) as part of the gallery's 150th birthday celebrations. It is a version of the exhibition that was held at the Prado earlier this year.

'Luis Melendez: Still lifes' provides a rare opportunity to consider the artist's achievements and map his disclosure as a painter of a genre that is prominent in the history of Spanish art. He is individual of its great masters, as this exhibition confirms.

Melendez take pleasure ined royal patronage, painting a series of still lilies for the private museum of natural history belonging to the Prince of Asturias, later King Charles iv of Spain. Twenty of these paintings dating from the period 1759-74 now in the Prado and not long ago restored, make up the core of this exhibition and are shown alongside loans from Europe and North America.

The mouth-watering Still life with apricots and cherries is single of the series painted for the Prince. A tumbling pile of freshly picked apricots is accompanied by means of glossy, sun-ripened cherries still upon their stems that contrast with the stamp of well-worn wooden table the artist used upon many occasions. Melendez often made autograph variants of his royal pictures for other private patrons and nearby hangs Still life with apricots and cherries, which is a simplified, more refined version.

Luis Egidio Melendez de Rivera Durazo y Santo Padre was horn in Naples in 1716 A year later, his family get backed to Spain and settled in Madrid. Born into a family of artists, Melendez's father was a miniature painter who was instrumental in founding the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in 1744 where Luis became a learner But, following a dispute, father and son were expell from the academy. Subsequently Melendez travelled to Italy, visiting Rome and Naples.

upon his return to Madrid in 1753 he worked mainly as a miniaturist, painting compositions in the choir works of the Royal Chapel, many of which had been sap the foundations ofed in a fire at the Alcazar Palace. Despite his efforts, Melendez at no time secured an official position at court and was not ever appointed Court Painter. He died in obscurity--probably a pauper--in Madrid in 1780

Although largely painted for the Prince of Austurias' museum, the pictures are domestic in scale. Each surface is replete and the objects so shut up to the viewer that they command attention. It is a shame, therefore, that the lighting of this exhibition is poor. a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of is made of Melendez's use of light, notwithstanding one of the first paintings in the display Still life with fruit, bread, cheese and wine, was unlit. The artist's command of the result of light and its fall upon different surfaces is more impressive. The highlighted bottle and glass in Still life with bread, pomegranates, figs, bottle and wine glass throw back parts of the room which are otherwise not seen A window is visible, as well as the form of the roof and details of the rafters. These reflections contribute to the picture's lively character.

Also included in the exhibition is a cluster of paintings that vary the still-life theme by means of being set in landscapes. In Still life with watermelons and apples in a landscape the luscious melon whose juice splashes onto the flinty foreground are placed alongside burly apples that look ready to be rent asunder Its companion piece, Still Life with pomegranates, apples, azaroles and grapes in a landscape, is obviously related in composition and is derived from a diction popular in seventeenth century Italy that Melendez saw upon his travels. Here, however, the spectacular pomegranates, split to display the richness of their nutritive transparent seeds, play the leading part Melendez is at the height of his powers, describing the couple form and detail in paint.

The simplicity of later works, of the like kind as Still life with salmon, lemon and kitchen utensils, is remarkable. In combining a stewing skillet saucepan and crockery with recent fish and fruit, Melendez creates textural contrasts. The well-used cent utensils, heavy slab of salmon and a lemon almost suspended at the table cutting side each play their own unostentatious part in this spectacle Examples of objects like those of which Melendez oftentimes made use--cooking pots, a honey jar, chocolate whisk--were displayed at the Prado and it is perhaps a shame that this was not repeated in Dublin. The comparison between painted and real fact would have extended our understanding of Melendez's skill.

Instead, we are given a twenty-first-century museum still life--an without contents warder's chair caught in a weak ray of Dublin sunlight when I visited. It is, unfortunately, the first composition the visitor dioceses because the chair stands at the focal point of the gallery. The exhibition is hung in the NGI's Millennium Wing, in five sweeps that lead off a drawn out corridor. Melendez's sensual works demand intimacy and shut inspection, but here they are almost overwhelmed by means of the monumental gallery spaces designed by dint of the architects Benson and Forsyth.