..Introduction..1500-1530..1530-1570..1570-1600Introduction
In Spain the transition to the sculpture of the Renaissance did not signify a general change of theme: the traditional religious iconography and certain essentials of the Gothic were firmly retained. At the same time, the Renaissance style is characterized by greater freedom and naturalism, and, within its limits, by great variety. Early in the sixteenth century, numerous artists of diverse origin - Flemings, Frenchmen, Italians - came and settled in the Iberian Peninsula. These men helped to instill the Renaissance spirit, but they were also responsible for its eclecticism and multiformity. At first, a great deal was imported from abroad, later, the output of immigrant and native artists became sufficient to satisfy the demand. 1500-1530
The Frenchman Philip Vigarny (Felipe Bigarny), did much to establish the Renaissance style in Burgos, where he arrived in 1498. The distinguishing characteristics of his work, both as a sculptor and as an architect, are love of order and correctness of form. In his reliefs (like that on the main altar of the Condestable's Chapel of the Burgos Cathedral), which reveal a most painstaking narrative technique, he employs the pictorial devices of perspective to suggest distance and the various zones of space. The year he arrived in Burgos he was commissioned to carve the alabaster reliefs in the ambulatory of the cathedral. The finest of these Gospel scenes is the Road to Calvary, which achieves eloquence without descending into rhetoric. Vigarny was also the author of four of the scenes that constitute the great retable of Toledo cathedral, and in 1505 he was entrusted with the retable of Palencia cathedral. He also carved the reliefs of the choir stalls in the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, those in Toledo dating from 1535. Sometimes Vigarny collaborated with Diego de Siloé, and sometimes with Alonso Berruguete; his style is recognizable as the more restrained, naturalistic, and more purely Renaissance of the three.
In 1519, Diego de Siloé, after completing the Golden Staircase in the Cathedral of Burgos between 1519 and 1523, carved the retable of the Condestable's Chapel in collaboration with Vigarny. Siloé's style is characterized by a pathos best expressed in the superb Christ and the Virgin and Child at Burgos. In 1525 he started work on the choir stalls of San Benito in Valladolid. His influence was as great in Andalusia as in Castile.
Although born in Burgos, Bartolomé Ordóñez worked first in Italy. In 1515 he was in Barcelona working on the choir of the cathedral. His well-composed reliefs and splendid marble panels, so severely monumental and harmonious, suggest the influence of Michelangelo. In about 1519 he must have executed the admirable tomb of Don Felipe and Dona Juana (Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad) in the Royal Chapel of Granada. A year later he died in Carrara, leaving behind him numerous admirers and imitators of his pure and noble style.
In the second decade of the sixteenth century, the Renaissance travelled from Burgos to Palencia. During this period, however, Palencian sculpture is chiefly oriented toward Juan de Valmaseda, who was still strongly attached to the Gothic tradition. Valmaseda was born about 1490; the first references to his activities mention his presence in Burgos, though he doubtless worked in various other cities, vitalizing them with his original style. In 1519 he carved the Calvary of the retable of Palencia cathedral, where the pathos is idealized by a great capacity for creating beauty. Valmaseda worked on a number of important monuments, the finest of which is the retable of St. Alphonsus in the same cathedral.
During the sixteenth century, immense retables continued to be erected in the churches and cathedrals of Spain. The fabric of the retable, based on superposed orders and rich ornament, became almost as important as the numerous statues and narrative reliefs. When the retable was carved in stone or marble, the influence of carpentry determined its form.
During the sixteenth century, the principal center of the art in New Castile was the city of Toledo. Gothic forms persisted there, but the Renaissance style reached the area prematurely. The sculptor whose work prepared its entry was Vasco de la Zarza, who remained active there until his death in 1524. Zarza may have been trained in Italy or under Fancelli in Avila. The affinity between his style and that of the Italian sculptor is revealed in the magnificent tomb in Toledo cathedral carved for his protector, Don Juan Carrillo de Albornoz, in which the delicate Plateresque ornamentation is combined with a classical outline. In 1518 he completed his most famous work: the ostentatious tomb of Don Alonso de Madrigal, behind the high altar in Avila cathedral. Far from submerging the figure of Don Alonso, the wealth of decoration glitters around him like an allegory of the treasures of the spiritual and religious life. The style of Vasco de la Zarza exerted a broad influence in Toledo, Avila, and Segovia.
In Andalusia, the spirit of Mercadante of Brittany still persisted. Among the masters who introduced the Renaissance was Jorge Fernández, the author of various sculptures in the portal of the Royal Chapel of Granada, carved about 1517 and still steeped in Gothicism. Castilian influence first made itself felt in the design of the choir stalls of Jaén cathedral, becoming more firmly established with the arrival of Diego de Siloé, to whom we owe the extremely beautiful reliefs of the choir stalls of San Jerónimo in Granada, and the praying statues of the Catholic Kings in the Royal Chapel of the same city.
In Aragon, the Renaissance arrived prematurely with the sculptor Gil Morlanes the Elder, who in 1506 completed the alabaster retable of the monastery of Montearagón (Huesca cathedral). Sumptuous retables in stone and alabaster are more common than those in wood. The most significant sculptor of the sixteenth century was Damián Forment, who is known to have worked in Valencia shortly after the year 1500. In 1509 he set up his workshop in Saragossa, where he remained until his death in 1540, without ceasing to maintain his contacts with the Mediterranean coast. His art is dominated by a severe decorative concept that lends variety to the composition without degenerating into restlessness. In 1509 he undertook to carve the superb retable of Nuestra Senora del Pilar in Saragossa, a work in a mixed style, with Renaissance figures surrounded by Gothic ornament. We are indebted to Forment for the retable of Huesca cathedral, completed in 1534. His original design for the great retable of the monastery of Poblet, commissioned in 1527, is also one of his masterpieces. During the sixteenth century, Forment's style played an important part in the development of Spanish sculpture, producing a number of notable sculptors. 1530-1570
The second third of the sixteenth century witnessed the culmination of Spanish Renaissance sculpture. Once the various foreign elements had been unified and integrated with the national character, an expressive power, derived in part from religious ideals, surged into the Renaissance forms, turning them to its own ends. The foreign masters who came to Spain no longer dictated their own style, but acted as interpreters of the spirit to which they were exposed. This period was presided over by a sculptor of genius: Alonso Berruguete, son of the painter Pedro Berruguete, born about 1488 in Paredes de Nava. In about 1508 he went to Italy and studied under Michelangelo. In 1517 he was back in Valladolid. His art is spread over a number of cities: Saragossa, Granada, Toledo, and Medina del Campo. Though the source of his style lies in the Florentine Renaissance, its essential originality appears to be derived from the personality of the sculptor himself.
Berruguete enlarged the conventional range of figures, distorting them, both to achieve pictorial effects and to heighten the pathos. He used polychromy, taking advantage of the reflections from gold to surround his figures with an air of unrest. His first important work to be recorded is the retable of the Mejorada (1525), now in the Valladolid Museum. In 1526 he was commissioned to carve the retable of San Benito de Valladolid, since dismantled but still preserved in the museum of that city. The figures of saints that form part of this altarpiece are among the most expressive he ever produced. In 1541 he must have executed the superb choir-stall reliefs in Toledo cathedral, a commission he shared with Vigarny. Here the figures are impetuous and tormented, but always under the control of an inspiration certain of its own resources. Berruguete also carved the episcopal throne, which is topped by an admirable Transfiguration; one panel, showing the Crossing of the Red Sea, is notable for its linear rhythm of the utmost originality. In 1554, Berruguete was commissioned to carve the tomb of Cardinal Tavera, which was finished shortly before the artist's death.
One of the more interesting
of the foreign artists who worked in Spain during the second third of the
sixteenth century is the Frenchman Juan de Juni,
whose sculpture is noted for its spirituality, manifested in full and
beautiful forms, natural in their proportions but declamatory in their
distortion of gesture. Juni may have been trained in Italy, since his art
shows evidence of contact with the Lombard Renaissance and
Michelangelo.
In about 1533 he appears in León, but by 1541 he was settled in
Valladolid. Several of his works deserve individual mention, among them
the retables
in Valladolid and Burgo de Osma cathedrals, and the Entombment in Segovia
cathedral, dating from 1571, which combines figures on the same theme
forming part of another Entombment,
preserved in the Museum in Valladolid.
The sculptors of the last
third of the sixteenth century worked under the influence of the great
personalities of the preceding epoch, upon whose characteristics they
superimposed certain Mannerist tendencies, with signs of a transition to
the Baroque. The most important was Juan de Anchieta, born in Azpeitia (Guipúzcoa)
in about 1540. In 1565 he was in Valladolid, but in about 1578 he moved to
Pamplona, where he lived until his death in 1588. Anchieta's most
conspicuous quality is grandeur of form, which developed into a virtual
obsession with the heroic and the monumental. His influence spread
throughout the area in which he worked, thanks, in part, to the efforts of
his collaborators and disciples.
During this period, the
religious art we have briefly described was paralleled by a sculpture
inspired by the court and closely associated with the ambitious projects
of Charles I and Philip II, particularly the Escorial. The principal
sculptors of this group were the Italians
1570-1600
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