17th Century Spanish Sculpture

1. Overview of the development of Spanish sculpture

Sculpture was the first art of Spain, developed a truly national style and freed from the dominant Italian influence. The peculiarities of its development were a special emphasis on the transfer of familiarity in the movements, the preservation of the old traditions of painting the statues, as well as the focus on Christian themes.

If the Spanish building art, as we have seen, since the beginning of the 17th century, has involuntarily again sought a closer contact with Italian, then the Spanish fine arts, which were towed by the Italians in the 16th century, now became themselves and turned to nature; in sculpture it was manifested, perhaps, even more clearly than in painting. It was the Spanish sculptors, not caring about the beauty of the pagan world of the gods that reigned even in the sculpture of papal Rome, devoted themselves almost exclusively to the service of the Christian church, which was never taken so seriously as in Loyola's fatherland. Only Spanish sculptors, in defiance of the whole of Europe, firmly held on to the old custom of painting and gilding statues and reliefs, mostly carved into wood; it was in Spain, more than in other countries, that they tried to replace the Michelangelo style with natural forms and movements and directly observed expression.

In fact, the polychrome (“al estofado”) Spanish sculpture and carving of the 17th century, to which Dielafoua in 1908 dedicated a huge, not everywhere equivalent work, is a special, closed in itself area of ​​the history of art. If the Spanish sculpture in the seventeenth century, according to the old habit, remained true to polychromy, now it even tried to disclaim responsibility for this habit; masters of the XVI century, in contrast to earlier sculptors, who used the services of the special “encarnadores” (body dyeing), “estofadores” (dyeing clothes) and “doradores” (goldsmiths), often painted themselves and gilded their statues; the great sculptors of the seventeenth century again began to provide painting of their works to painters. Francisco Pacheco, one of the most prominent Seville painters in transition (1571–1654), who wrote a guide to painting, often participated in painting the works of his countrymen, defended the division of labor in this respect and praised that he invented a special kind of matte coloring, giving the body a completely natural look. It is a mistake to think that Pacheco applied his matte color to clothes, etc., which were still painted, often on gilded soil, with bright but finely coordinated oil paints. Some of the greatest masters, like the ancient Greeks, inserted crystal eyes into the statues of saints and even liked to place crystal tears on their cheeks. But the delicate taste of Spanish artists who knew how to merge all this into a truly artistic whole deserves surprise.

Bronze sculptures in Spain were very rare in this era. The full-size life-sized kneeling bronze figure of Don Cristobal de Rojas y-Sandoval by Juan de Harpes (1535–1603) on the tombstone in San Pedro in Lerma belongs to the 16th century. Large stone sculptures are found, in addition to tombstones, mainly as components of the external and internal architecture, and even they sometimes bear traces of color. These include the colossal statues of the six Old Testament kings by Juan Bautista Monegro (died in 1621), the best pupil of Berruguete, in front of the upper floor of the facade of the church Escorial and his gigantic statue of St. Lawrence in the entrance hall of the Escorial; large stone groups of Evangelicals and Fathers of the Church of José de Arphes (1603–1666) above the side chapels of the Carapapio in the Seville Cathedral; also the statues of the apostles Francisco del Rincón in the external niches of the church of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias in Valladolid, completed in 1606. All these old-style works are still on Italian soil.

The new Spanish national sculpture, which was essentially a religious art, flourished mainly in two schools, the northern one, with Valladolid as its main center, and the southern one, the center of which is Seville.

Sculptors Valyadolid

In Valladolid, where Esteban Jordan (circa 1543–1600), on the threshold of a new century, performed in the Church of Magdalen such works as colored, carved main altar and painted Pedro Gasca, alabaster, already free from Michelangelo’s exaggerations, were the creator of the first direction Gregorio Hernandez, in Seville, where Pacheco has already painted the carvings of Gaspard Nuñez Delgado, - Juan Martinez Montanes. The northern and southern schools competed, like two sisters, in returning to natural forms, positions and movements, but differed in their spiritual mood and understanding of colors. The North was full of sorrowful themes and wrapped its works in serious simple colors. The South, also depicting suffering, preferred more joyful episodes, in which the beauty of its female types triumphed, and painted them magnificently with more vivid and luxurious colors.

Gregorio Hernandez, or Fernandez (1570, not 1566, until 1636) was originally from Galicia, but based in Valladolid, where by the power of his talent he returned the style of Berruget and Becerra to the simplicity of nature. His altarpiece Crucifixion has not survived, but, as far as we know, he already turned to the cooperation of a professional painter. The polychrome coloring of his “Holy Family” in 1621, now located in San Lorenzo in Valladolid, was taken over by Diego Valentin Diaz, his faithful assistant for many years. And here, according to the preserved condition, body parts are painted with matte paint, clothes with oil paints with gilding. His best work is considered to be touching, powerlessly kneeling and mourning the head and upper body of the grieving Mother of God in the chapel of the Cross in Valladolid. It is here that the eyes and tear drops are made of crystal; here the colors of a black and blue cloak, a brown dress with a lining of yellow ocher and a gray headscarf are strictly and subtly matched; and it is here that the most sorrowful movement and the simplest naturalness miraculously united in the language of plastic form. In total it is more convenient to study Gernandez in the Valladolid Museum. There is his high relief with the Crucifixion and painted with matte crimson paint on a gold background by John, whose naturalness he considered it a duty to still blame Passavan. There his “Pieta”, the Mother of God, holding the numbed corpse of the Savior on its knees, is a group remarkable for its rare immediacy of feeling: in the same place is its relief from Carmen Calcado with Madonna, transmitting St. Simon's staff and cloak. Illustrious, with a calm coloring, of sv. Francis of this museum we also have to attribute to Hernandez, and in the large statue of Theresa and even more so in the images of passions (12 stops - “Pasos”), worn in processions, we can only recognize the works of his workshop.

Fig. 131. Pieta. Gregorio Hernandez's painted wooden group at the Barcelona Museum. From photos of Laurent in Madrid

Of the many students of Hernandez, only a few have advanced as artistic personalities. In Madrid, moved his style about half a century, such masters as the Portuguese Manuel Pereira (died in 1667), the creator of the once famous St. Bruno in the Cartesian monastery del Paular in Madrid, beautifully, clearly felt through the Maraflores monastery, and Alonso de los Rios from Valladolid (circa 1650–1700), the founder of an entire school of sculptors that flourished in the XVIII century at the Madrid Academy.

2. Sculptors of the Seville School

The Seville School of Spanish Sculpture was a current independent of Valladolid and at the same time also had a pronounced national flavor. The most famous masters of this school are Juan Montanes and his student Alonso Cano.

Works of Montañez

At the same time, the existing school of sculptors in Seville, the development of which Gendke described in a special book, regardless of the Valladolid school, headed along the same national fairway. Juan Martinez Montanes was born in the province of Granada around 1580, and not in 1557, as Dielafua mistakenly thinks. He died in 1649. His teacher is called Pablo de Rojas. He owes his faithful nature and at the same time enlightened style only to himself, his people and his era. Together with Berimudets we stand on the fact that the adorable baby Christ of 1607 in the sacristy of the “old chapel” of the Seville Cathedral with its signature should be considered its first authentic work. Of great importance is its extensive, composed of reliefs and figures of saints, painted altar in San Isidro del Campo in Santiponse near Seville (1610 to 1612). The saints are best executed: st. Jerome in the middle of the altar, below painted Pacheco, at the top in the center of St. Isidore, over whom stands Madonna. Narrative reliefs, perhaps, only the works of his workshop, are still rather incoherently grouped, but individual figures are distinguished by strict execution and mature beauty. On the whole, the altar of Montanes 1614–1617 is more complete. in Santa Clara in Seville, in the middle part of which are located below St. Clara, at the top of the “Immaculate Conception”, and the stills are decorated with New Testament reliefs. The most perfect altar of Montañez is a powerful three-tier structure in San Miguel in Cadix, 1640. Here, relief images occupy the middle part of three in each tier, with the Angels Fall, Transfiguration and Assumption occupying the middle part one above the other, and the individual figures of the saints are placed on the sides. It is the reliefs, excellent in composition, that show the continuous and steady growth of the art of this master compared to those in Santiponse and made 30 years ago.

Everything Montagnes achieved in the field of gravestone grafting is expressed in his kneeling stone figures of Don Peres de Guzmán el Bueno and his wife in the same church at Santiponce. They are not worked from life, but represent ideal portraits of great vitality.

The most fascinating is Montañez, in his St. Mary's carved and painted individual figures. Domingo, sv. Bruno and John the Baptist in the Seville Museum, of course, still do not reach the height of his best works. But the magnificent, well-conceived, sparkling with life and the spirit of the statue of St.. Ignatius of Loyola and of sv. Francis from Borja in the university church in Seville is among the best, and in the dreamy images of the holy Virgin, who influenced all Spanish art, this master surpassed himself. The simple divinity of expression is combined in these works with all the beauty of Andalusian women. Filled with holy pride, it is worth Mary with a child in the Seville Museum. His symbolic images of the Immaculate Conception, full of greatness and fervor, i.e., not so much immaculately conceived, how many immaculately conceived, which in most cases soars in the sky on a crescent moon surrounded by angel heads, folding their hands on their breasts and lowering or raising in awe to heaven eyes. There is no other people whose art would depict this mystery as often, as sincerely and as fascinatingly as the Spanish, and Montanes belongs among the creators who perfected these images. His most beautiful “Conception”, all fire, all soul, all self-forgetting in forms true to nature, the most beautiful femininity, shrouded in lush clothing, falling in magnificent folds, stands in the cathedral; the next most beautiful is the university church of Seville.

But how divinely and at the same time humanly able this master is to depict the type of suffering God-man, shows him truly powerful in his simple, unvarnished grandeur "Crucifixion" in the Seville Cathedral, whose "matte" polychromy belongs to Pacheco, as well as his "Carrying the Cross" ( del Gran Poder), unfortunately, closed with real clothes, in the churches of San Lorenzo and San Salvador in Seville. The subtly conceived and executed head of Christ with a thin nose, sunken cheeks, swollen lips is no less worthy of surprise in itself than its animation with the deepest goals of redeeming the world.

The work of students and followers of Montañez

Of the disciples of Montañez, his son Alonso Martinez Montanes, who died in 1668, stands so close to him that they are often confused. But, as the self-assured “Conception” in the cathedral and the main altar in San Clemente in Seville show, he lacks the immediacy and conscious depth of his father’s creations.

Pedro Roldan (1624-1701) was independent, although his touching “Behold the Man” in the church of Caridad in Seville reminded him so much of Montañés that he was attributed to this last one. His own manner of coarser and more dry realism is manifested in both the lamentation of Christ, of which one adorns the “Carpapio” of the cathedral, the other with the terrible realistic coloring of Valdez Leal - the Church of Caridad in Seville. The most significant student of Montañez as a sculptor was a student in painting Pacheco Alonso Cano from Granada (1601–1667), with whom we are already familiar as a kind of architect and who we will meet again among painters. Mostly he devoted himself to sculpture only since 1651, when, after a hectic life, he based himself on peace in his hometown as a beneficiary of the cathedral. From his early sculptural works, we will call both John's altars in Santa Paula, “Conception” in San Andrés in Seville, and the altar in Madonna in the church Lebrihi. The “conception” in San André, with its coquettish pose and pleasant coloring, approaches the later direction of Kano than Montanes. Even his “Crucifixion”, as in the Church of Montserrat in Madrid, with hair falling on its thin cheek, its head bowed to the right, and in the old sacristy of Valencia, with forms that are more pleasant than majestic, softer and more sentimental than those of Montañés; the same features are discovered by his St. Anthony with baby Jesus in his arms at San Nicolas in Madrid.

More roughly executed statue of sv. Anna in the Granada Cathedral (the third in number), attributed to Dyelafua to the master himself, belongs only to his direction; on the contrary, physically and mentally soulful, trembling from nervous pain of St. Magdalene of the Cartesian monastery in Granada and it seems to us his own handwork. It is this kind of work that reveals greater sentimentality and a more conscious sense of beauty, which distinguish Kano's style from Montanes style.

Of the disciples of Alonso Pedro de Mena (died in 1693) - the most significant Spanish sculptor of the second half of the century. Sharply named old masters, he emphasizes the "contrast." His body structure is firmer and clearer. Heads with wide noses and narrow thin lips are rounder and fuller. He is not a master of vividly designating various external movements, but his internal movement is clearly expressed in his figures.

Fig. 132. Wooden statue of sv. Francis in the Toledo Cathedral by Pedro de Mena. From photos of Laurent in Madrid

Mena became famous for his first painted individual figures of the monastery of El Angel in Granada, and then, from 1658, his unpainted figures of saints on the seats of the choir of the cathedral in Malaga; both of these works were handed to him by Kano. Restless in his movements, with high foreheads, the ideal types of his apostles seem to be less successful than even the figures of medieval saints, more natural and with more internal movement. His equestrian statue of Sant Jago (St. Jacob) in the Cathedral of Granada suffers from the vagueness of the general movement, although in particular it is more successful. Deeply felt his little statue of St. Francis in the Toledo Cathedral (1663), where she is mistakenly attributed to Kano. Luxurious and noble of sv. Magdalen and St. Gertrude Mena in San Martin, impressed by the strong, almost wild movement, is made by his “Crucifixion” in the Néestra Señora de Grazia in Madrid. The most beautiful "Conception" (1678) master has San Nicolas in Murcia. The most mature of his Mari, the seated Madonna in pink and white, with a cheerful baby in her arms (1680), is in the church of barefoot nuns in Granada.

In the XVIII century, José de Mora (1638–1725), one of the last students of Kano, stepped over. In his calm figures, which are broad-shouldered, with small heads the saints in the Cardinal Chapel of the Cathedral in Cordoba, he still adhered to a good school tradition and at the same time nature. In more animated figures, intentional transmission of passionate feelings breaks through. His St. Joseph and sv. Bruno in the Cartesian monastery in Granada, attributed to Dielafoua, according to the walking tradition, Kano, are characteristic works of this genus. In St. Bruno, arms folded high on his chest and with a prayer, half-opened his lips, looking anxiously at the sky, ecstatic faith expressed vividly, but somewhat theatrically. Holy rush of sv. Cecilia on the altar of Sant Yago in the cathedral and of sv. Panteleon in the church of sv. Anne in Granada in any case can not be compared with the ardor of St. Bruno.

Fig. 133. St. Bruno, the work of José de Mora, in Certosa in Granada. From photos of Laurent in Madrid

Below we will see that Spain did not change its wooden statues in colored clothes (al estofado) in the XVIII century.