Spain, Art in

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SPAIN, ART IN

SPAIN, ART IN. In 1469 the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile united their respective territories, giving form to what was, even in the fifteenth century, identified as "Hispania." Their reign saw the surrender of Granada, which brought an end to a seven-century-long campaign to regain the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors who had invaded in 711; it also saw Christopher Columbus's voyage to America. The reign of these monarchs—known as the Catholic kings—has long been seen as a "golden age" in Spanish history.

As the monarchs solidified their powers, the court of the Catholic kings was continually on the move. The historian J. H. Elliot sees in this a certain cultural advantage: Isabella, who enjoyed a European reputation as a patron of learning, brought distinguished scholars to her court, whose ideas were disseminated as the court moved about the Iberian peninsula. However, a peripatetic court is not conducive to patronage of painting or collecting. Thus, the monarchs made no effort to encourage training or patronage of native artists and often turned toward Northern Europe to fulfill their needs, which included court portraiture. Such patronage continued a trend famously illustrated by Isabella's father, John II of Castile, who had founded the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores near Burgos in 1442 and donated an altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, described in contemporary documents as "Master Rogier, the great and famous Fleming" (Staatliche Museen, Berlin).

Yet the Catholic kings' patronage of nonnative artists, such as the Estonian Michel Sittow or the Flemish artist simply known as "Juan de Flandes" (John of Flanders), introduces a trend that is seen throughout the history of painting in early modern Spain, namely, royal patronage of non-native artists whose style then influenced the work of other painters. In the coming centuries, Philip II commissioned from Titian several mythological paintings, known as the poesie and illustrating stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Philip IV would commission of Peter Paul Rubens several works, including a series of mythological subjects to decorate his hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada. And when, in 1701, the Bourbons replaced the Habsburgs on the Spanish throne, they looked to France and Italy for artists to fill the demands at court. The history of painting in Spain is thus a history of cross-currents and international influences, and it is misleading to reduce the story to a strictly nationalist concept of "Spanish" painting.

The influence of Flemish artists is seen in the early works of Pedro Berruguete (1450s–d. by 6 January 1504) but is tempered by lessons learned during the artist's trip to Italy sometime prior to 1483. One of Berruguete's best-known works is a series of paintings for the main altarpiece of the Dominican monastery of St. Thomas in Ávila, several panels of which hang today in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. One of these is a multifigured scene, showing Saint Dominic presiding over an auto-dafé. While the linear rendering of the figures betrays lessons gleaned from Flemish art, the complex space of the painting, with its stairs and various platforms, suggest the artist's interest in addressing issues of perspective possibly learned in Italy.

In 1519 the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella came to the Spanish throne as duke of Burgundy and Charles I of Spain, and would ultimately become Charles V, Holy Roman emperor. His need to oversee and protect his vast dominions, which added to the Iberian territories Burgundy, the Netherlands, Austria, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, meant that his court was, like that of his grandparents, peripatetic. He nevertheless met Titian in 1529, and from that developed a relationship of patron and artist that would continue until Charles's death in 1558. When Titian joined the emperor in Augsburg in 1548, the result would be a key painting in monarchic iconography that also captures the militaristic nature of his reign: the equestrian portrait Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg (1548; Museo del Prado, Madrid).

PAINTING UNDER PHILIP IV

In 1561 Charles's son Philip II, who had reigned for five years, made the decision to move his court from Toledo to Madrid, perhaps because the winding, narrow streets and medieval infrastructure of Toledo could no longer accommodate Philip's growing retinue. In Madrid, the court would reside in the Moorish fortress of the Alcázar, which would be continually renovated and serve as the residence of Spanish kings until it was destroyed by fire in 1734. Perhaps because the Alcázar no longer exists, Philip II has become more closely identified with the palace-monastery at the Escorial, where the court would reside during Holy Week and on other major church feasts.

The Escorial, commissioned by Philip and built during his reign, is a unique complex encompassing apartments for the royal family and court, a seminary, a monastery, a royal basilica, and a royal tomb. Begun by the court architect Juan Bautista de Toledo (d. 1567), the project was taken over after his death by Juan de Herrera (c. 1530–1597). In 1576 Juan Fernández de Navarrete (c. 1526–1579) was contracted to paint forty altarpieces to decorate the basilica. These were to represent paired saints, and their iconography reconfirmed the validity of the veneration of saints as well as the use of devotional images, both tenets reconfirmed by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Three months before his death, Navarrete received the commission for the high altar of the basilica. Padre de Siguenza, a prior of the Escorial who in 1605 provided an invaluable account of its history, wrote that had Navarrete not died, Spain might have been spared the incursion of Italian artists who subsequently took over the decoration of the complex. The main Italian contributor was Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527–1596), who after his arrival in 1588 directed a team of artists to paint the murals in the library and also painted the main altarpiece for the basilica. But the Escorial also lured a painter destined to become far more closely identified with painting in Spain, Doménikos Theotokópoulous, more commonly known as El Greco (1541–1614).

El Greco had arrived in Toledo in 1577, where he was commissioned to paint The Disrobing of Christ (1577–1579, Cathedral Sacristy, Toledo) and the main altarpiece of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, the central panel of which depicts the Assumption of the Virgin (1577; The Art Institute of Chicago). In both works, vibrant colors, fluid brushwork, and complex compositions of gesticulating, elongated figures attest to lessons learned during the Greek native's sojourn in Venice and Rome (1568–1577). In the case of The Disrobing of Christ several iconographic details met with the disapproval of El Greco's patrons, suggesting that the artist brought with him from Italy a strong sense of artistic license to which Spanish patrons were unaccustomed. The artist's creativity also may have worked against him when, in 1580, he received a commission to paint The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice and the Theban Legion for the chapel at the Escorial (1580–1582; the Escorial Museum). In the final painting, El Greco goes against Counter-Reformation dictates, relegating the scene of martyrdom to the distance, while placing in the foreground the consultation among the soldiers that led to the martyrdom. This order was reversed in a second version of the theme, painted by Romulo Cincinato, which was displayed in the chapel; El Greco's painting was relegated to the chapter house of the monastery.

Having failed to win his bid for royal patronage, El Greco returned to Toledo, where he would establish his reputation among a learned group of private and ecclesiastic patrons. Here he would paint what is perhaps his greatest achievement, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586–1588, Santo Tomé, Toledo) to decorate the count's refurbished burial chapel. The subject of the painting is the 1323 funeral of this distinguished and charitable citizen of Toledo, at which Saints Stephen and Augustine miraculously appeared to lower him into his grave. El Greco includes portraits of his contemporaries attending the funeral, as the count's soul is taken to the heavens, depicted in the upper half of the painting. Here, weightless and elongated figures are perched on the clouds, likewise witnessing the miracle.

PAINTING IN SEVILLE

During the last years of the sixteenth century, the southern port city of Seville became increasingly important, enriched by trade with the New World. Art patronage often follows wealth, so it is not surprising that the first half of the seventeenth century finds in Seville the young Diego de Velázquez (1599–1661), who would soon move to the court of Madrid and will be discussed in the context of his career there; Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664); and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). Zurbarán and Murillo worked mainly for religious patrons, although we should not overlook the masterful still-life paintings of Zurbarán, or the genre scenes of young children by Murillo, which were the first works by the artist admired widely outside of Spain.

Zurbarán's mature style is characterized by a realism and intense chiaroscuro that give his otherworldly figures a sculptural presence in the here and now. Although these traits might recall the work of Caravaggio, Zurbarán's style is far less Italianate in its absence of mathematical perspective and rendering of volumes. Examined closely, we find his figures to be linear and somewhat flat, traits countered by the hyperrealistic shadowing. Yet, the absence of Italianate principles does not compromise the power of his figures, exemplified by the almost life-size Christ on the Cross painted for the Sevillian monastery of San Pablo el Real (1627; The Art Institute of Chicago). Here, the painter's precise handling and dramatic chiaroscuro demand our attention—as it forced the monastic viewer to contemplate the humanity and sacrifice of Christ. Anatomical correctness is secondary to the overall impact: Christ's arms are too long for his form, and his body, despite its surface modeling, appears without volume in space.

By the 1640s Zurbarán's dominance of painting in Seville would be challenged by the younger Murillo, who soon moved away from a Caravaggesque realism to depicting more idealized figures in a softer, more painterly idiom. It has often been suggested that Murillo's more tempered style provided an aesthetic antidote to the troubles that ravaged Seville at midcentury, as New World trade moved south to the port city of Cádiz. Certainly, the beautiful Madonnas who float in the heavens in Murillo's images of the Immaculate Conception would support this theory. But even in narrative images, such as The Return of the Prodigal Son painted for the Hospital of Charity in Seville (1667–1670; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) realism is tempered, and the theme of love and forgiveness emphasized.

PHILIP IV AND VELÁZQUEZ

Meanwhile in Madrid, Philip III died prematurely at the age of forty-three in 1621, leaving the throne to his sixteen-year-old son, Philip IV. The young Philip did not come alone to power but was accompanied by an Andalusian aristocrat, Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, better known as the count-duke of Olivares. Assuming the role of the royal favorite—that is, close adviser and confidant of the king—the count-duke was also loyal to his native Seville. This connection explains the arrival at court in 1623 of the twenty-four-year-old native of that city, Velázquez.

Soon after his arrival, Velázquez established himself as a court portraitist, painting the king, his brother (Don Carlos), and the count-duke. But equally important, his presence at court led him to study the royal collection—rich in works by Titian—and also to meet Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), who visited the court in 1628. It was perhaps this encounter that led Velázquez to attempt his first mythological subject, The Feast of Bacchus (1628, Prado). The painting marks a breakthrough in Velázquez's work, as he creates a multifigured scene, centered on the partially nude figure of the god. Perhaps, too, it was Rubens who inspired Velázquez to undertake in 1629 his first journey to Italy, following an itinerary that would take him to Venice, Rome, and Naples.

During the 1630s Philip IV undertook the construction and decoration of a new pleasure palace in Madrid, to become known as the Buen Retiro. He would commission twelve artists—among them Velázquez and Zurbarán—to paint scenes commemorating recent military triumphs for the ceremonial hall known at the Hall of the Realms. Velázquez's contribution, The Surrender at Breda (1634–1635, Prado), shows the degree to which his style had matured since his arrival at court. On a canvas measuring ten feet in width, he portrays the surrender of the Dutch general Justin of Nassau to Ambrogio Spinola. Figures from both armies surround their leaders in a foreground set against a panoramic landscape that is made luminous by the liberal use of white underpainting, covered by glazes of color.

Unlike many court patrons, Philip IV apparently did not limit the range of Velázquez's work and may well have encouraged his experimentation. To be sure, Velázquez continued to paint portraits of the royal family. But he also took up other themes, including portraits of court jesters and dwarfs, mythological subjects, and complex compositions that blend mythology and contemporary genre (The Fable of Arachne, c. 1655, Prado). His greatest achievement, blending narrative, theater and portraiture, is Las Meninas or The Maids of Honor (c. 1656, Prado).

On one level, Las Meninas is a portrait of the Philip's daughter, the Infanta Margarita, attended by her retinue. But looking to the left, we find Velázquez painting at his easel and, like the infanta, looking in our direction. Although the object of his gaze is uncertain, it may well be the king and queen, who are reflected in the mirror at the center of the back wall in the painting. Some scholars have suggested that the royal couple has just entered the room, which explains why some of the figures in the painting are aware of their presence and others not. But if this is the case, what is Velázquez painting?

Velázquez marks the zenith of painting at the Habsburg court, and his capable contemporaries and successors at court are diminished by comparison. As a result, such painters as Juan Carreño de Miranda and Claudio Coello, who painted during the reign of Charles II (ruled 1675–1700), have not received the attention they deserve.

ART AT THE BOURBON COURT AND GOYA'S BEGINNINGS

On the death of Charles II, it was decided that the grandson of Louis XIV would accede to the Spanish throne. Although this succession was challenged by England, Austria, and the Netherlands, the death of their candidate in 1711 led to the Treaty of Utrecht, which gave the Spanish throne to the Bourbons, who reign to the present day.

This change in dynasty signaled a major change in patronage, as the Bourbon monarchs brought to Spain Italian and French painters, sculptors, and architects, such as René Carlier, who in the 1720s designed the rococo gardens of the palace at La Granja outside Segovia. Adopting French models, the Bourbons also founded establishments for the manufacture of luxury goods needed by the court, including porcelains, silks, and tapestries. Painters, like the architects and designers brought to Spain by the Bourbons, introduced a radical stylistic change, epitomized by the group portrait The Family of Philip V (1743; Prado) by Louis Michel van Loo (1707–1771). Here, members of the court, including Philip's second wife, Elizabeth French, pose in French costume before a draped colonnade that opens onto a park. The Bourbons also encouraged new genres, including scenes of life at court, and views of the royal palaces created by Michael-Ange Houasse during the 1720s.

The major artistic undertaking of the mid-eighteenth century was the building of the royal palace, to replace the Alcázar, destroyed by fire in 1734. The Italian Giovanni Battista Sacchetti (1690–1764) worked on the project until 1760, when the new king, Charles III (himself recently arrived from Naples) replaced him with Francisco Sabatini (1721–1797). It was during Sabatini's tenure as first court architect that Anton Raphael Mengs and Giambattista Tiepolo arrived in Madrid to paint ceiling frescoes within the palace. Mengs, in turn, trained Spanish artists, including Francisco Bayeu y Subías, who, as court painter, would probably introduce his brother-in-law, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, to court in 1774.

Although Goya is more often linked to Velázquez than to any other painter, we should not underestimate the extent to which the cosmopolitan patronage of the Bourbons informed his training. His early training in Saragossa was with a Neapolitan-trained painter, and he traveled to Parma and Rome in the early 1770s, developing a late baroque figural style seen in religious paintings done on his return to Saragossa in 1772. When he was invited to Madrid in 1774, it was to create designs, or cartoons, for tapestries to be woven by the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara—one of the luxury goods factories established by the Bourbons. Although his first series, done under the supervision of Francisco Bayeu, were rather staid hunting scenes, he soon received permission to conceive scenes of "his own invention." The impetus for the innovative nature of these scenes of life in and around Goya's Madrid has never been explained but may be indebted in part to the work of French genre painters, such as Houasse (whose works were in the royal collection) or Jean-Antoine Watteau (whose works Goya might have known through engravings).

When Goya turned to portraiture in the 1780s, he worked in a very detailed and descriptive style inspired by Mengs, as illustrated by The Marquesa de Pontejos (1786; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The marquesa stands against a pastel landscape, wearing a dress of gauze decorated with flowers and ribbons, in a work whose tones and compositions recall the portraits of Mengs.

In April 1789 Goya won the long-sought position of court painter. But with the downfall of the Bourbons in France, Goya's patrons would demand an independent identity and iconography. Goya himself would create this identity, as in his royal portraits of the late 1790s—including The Family of Carlos IV (1800–1801; Prado); he looked back, not to the French artists brought to Spain under the Bourbon court, but to Velázquez, whose somber palette and painterly style he now emulated. Thus the artist creates a "Spanish tradition" in his quest to define the Spanish identity of his patrons. It is at this point that we can begin to speak of Spanish painting as a willed construction rather than a historical fact.

See also Art: Artistic Patronage ; Bourbon Dynasty (Spain) ; El Greco ; Ferdinand of Aragón ; Goya y Lucientes, Francisco de ; Painting ; Philip IV (Spain) ; Velázquez, Diego ; Zurbarán, Francisco de .