Alejo Fernández was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

  best known for his portrait of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

 painted between 1505 and 1536.

Biography

He was born in Córdoba

Córdoba, Spain

-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...

. Here, influenced by the style of the Flemish masters

Flemish painting

Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from neighbouring countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence...

, he studied perspective and the structure of space. After moving to Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

 in 1508, his interest moved to huma representation. To the period in Córdoba belong the Christ at the Column in the city's Museum and the Triptych of the Last Supper in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar

Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar

The Basilica-Cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar is a Roman Catholic church in the city of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. The Basilica venerates Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title Our Lady of the Pillar praised as Mother of the Hispanic Peoples by Pope John Paul II...

 in Zaragoza

Zaragoza

Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...

. Both are influenced by Bramante's style. In Fernández' later works, the figures are more majestic and more balanced with the presence of architectural elements. Later works include the Virgin of the Rose in the church of St. Anne in Seville, showing Italian influences such as Pinturicchio

Pinturicchio

Bernardino di Betto, called Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He acquired his nickname, Pintoricchio , because of his small stature, and he used it to sign some of his works....

 and Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, as well as Lombard masters, and the Virgin of the Sailors in the Alcázar of Seville

Alcázar of Seville

thumb|right|250px|Baths of Lady María de PadillaThe Alcázar of Seville is a royal palace in Seville, Spain, originally a Moorish fort....

.

He died in Seville around 1545.