Miguel de la Espriella

Miguel de la Espriella (born November 14, 1947), more commonly known by his artistic name, Noble, is a self-taught painter and sculptor from Sucre, Colombia, whose art has been presented widely within his country and throughout the world.

Miguel de la Espriella ("Noble")
Miguel de la Espriella (2006)
Born	Miguel Francisco de la Espriella Vergara (1947-11-14) November 14, 1947 Caimito, Sucre, Colombia
Nationality	Colombia
Education	Self Taught
Known for	Painting, Sculpture
Movement	Naïve, Magical Realism, Expressionism

Noble's work principally reflects the theme of nature that he experienced in the countryside while growing up on the Colombian coast.

The paintings for which he is best known are most often an integration of still lifes and landscapes with a strong "ethereal" presence related to the Latin American school of magic realism and reminiscent of the land in which Macondo, the imaginary town written about in "100 Years of Solitude" by García Márquez the winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, could have been set. Indeed, it may be this essence to Noble's artwork that provoked Gabo to write about it when he said:

"There is in the painting of Miguel de la Espriella, "Noble", an explosion of light that comes from a background of shadows, the glare of the universe in the middle of a vegetable serfdom populated by birds and dragonflies. What makes an impact are his chiaroscuros with that essential validity that has always been present in Rembrandt. But in the concrete case of Noble it is not about imitation, but continuity, of a process that is forever in renewal and because of that, lasts. It is the survival of art and its real mode of expression while at the same time understanding it." [Published in the Colombian magazine FAMA (2000)]