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Baroque and Rococo
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Baroque and Rococo
Art Map |
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Francisco Rizi
Gregorio
Hernandez
Juan Martinez Montanes
Juan Bautista de Toledo
Juan Gomez de Mora
see also collection:
Francisco Zurbaran
Alonso Cano
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Francisco Ribalta
Juan Valdes Leal
Juan Carreno de Miranda
Claudio Coello
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The 17th century in Spain
The 17th century was the golden age of Spanish painting, thanks to a
tremendous surge of artistic activity throughout Andalusia and
especially in Seville, the economic, cultural, and spiritual centre
of Spain. Gradually, however, many artists gravitated to Madrid,
attracted by the presence of the royal court, although church
patronage continued to play a very important role throughout the
kingdom. During the first 20 years of the century, the dominant
artistic trend was naturalism, further stimulated by the spread of
Caravaggism and by works of art that reached Spain from Italy. An
accurate depiction of reality and the orchestration of the interplay
of light and shade were evident in the early works of the first
generation of great 17th-century artists in Seville:
Francisco Zurbaran (1598-1664),
Diego Velazquez, and
Alonso Cano (1601-67).
Velazquez' youthful works, such as
Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618),
already showed a powerful artistic language, used to convey the
everyday life of ordinary people. His treatment of religious
subjects shows an equally-realistic portrayal of form and
chiaroscuro, an interest shared with contemporary Sevillian
sculptors. In 1623, Velazquez first came into contact with Philip
IV, from whom he was to receive many portrait commissions. He
studied Titian's paintings in the royal collection in Madrid and met
Rubens (who was in Madrid in from 1628 to 1629), but reached the
height of his powers after his travels in Italy between 1629 and
1631, which made a profound impression upon him. His work is
distinguished by a free and agile technique, using touches of
vibrant and softly shaded colour and swift, looser brushwork to
achieve a rare interplay between reality and illusion. The painter
and sculptor Alonso Cano developed from an early lively naturalism
towards the pursuit of a Renaissance-inspired ideal beauty, while
Francisco Zurbaran's paintings convey an austere Iberian
spirituality. In his figurative paintings, the sculptural figures
stand out against dark backgrounds, epitomized in his Vision of St
Peter Nolasco (1629), while his still lifes are intense and vibrant.
Towards the middle of the centuiy
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
(1618-82) became extremely successful, having learned much from the
previous generation of Sevillian painters such as
Francisco Ribalta
(1565-1628), whose style remained vigorously Caravaggesque, and the
melancholy, strange Luis de Morales (1520-86) whose religious
paintings, particularly his many Madonnas enjoyed considerable
popularity. Murillo's devotional pictures are above all pleasing to
the senses, emphasizing the consolatory aspects of religion with a
sweetness that sometimes borders on the cloying. His tenderness of
vision, which met with prolonged popularity, can be seen even in his
genre scenes. The paintings of Juan Valdes Leal (1622-90) by
contrast, were full of energy and drama. It was at this time that
Flemish influence, ranging from Rubens
to van Dyck , again played a
decisive role in Spanish art, and Baroque taste prevailed in the
development of large-scale fresco ciecoration in the grand manner.
The greatest exponents of this style were Francisco Rizi (1614-85)
and the court painters Juan Carreno de Miranda (1614-85) and
Claudio Coello (1642-93).
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Francisco
Rizi(b Madrid, 1614; d
Madrid, 2 Aug 1685).
Painter and stage designer. He may well have received his early training
from his father, but most sources indicate that he was also a pupil of
Vicente Carducho, who refers to him as such in his will of 1638, in
which he bequeathed him the sketchbook of his choice among those in his
studio. Rizi’s contact with the court was probably due to Carducho, and
by 1639 he was working with Alonso Cano and other artists of his
generation in Madrid (Antonio Arias Fernandez, Jusepe Leonardo, Felix
Castelo, Diego Polo and others) on the decoration (destr.) of the Salon
Dorado (or Salon Grande) of the Alcázar. The decorative scheme, which
had been designed by Carducho, consisted of portraits of the kings of
Castile. Many works by Rizi are recorded in the 1640s, and in 1649, on
the occasion of the state entry of Mariana of Austria, the second wife
of Philip IV, into Madrid, he was responsible for organizing the street
decorations and the temporary architectural structures. At the same time
he was working in the royal theatre of the Palacio del Buen Retiro,
Madrid, where he was engaged for many years, succeeding the Italians
Baccio del Bianco and Cosimo Lotti as a specialist in theatre
decoration.
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Francisco Rizi
Virgin and Child with Sts Philip and Francis
1650
Oil on canvas
Capuchinos, El Pardo
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Francisco Rizi
Altarpiece
1655
Oil on canvas
Parish church, Fuente el Saz
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Francisco Rizi
Auto-da-fe on Plaza Mayor, Madrid
1683
Oil on canvas, 277 x 438 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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SCULPTURE IN SPAIN
Some of the most outstanding works by 17th-century Spanish sculptors
were devotional pieces in polychrome wood. Those of Gregorio
Hernandez (1576— 1636), the greatest sculptor of the Castilian
school, are imbued with an intense, passionate expressivity.
The polychrome sculptures of Juan Martinez Montanes (1568-1649), a
sculptor active in Seville and a friend of Francisco Pacheco,
possessed a powerful naturalism yet strove to convey a spiritual
message. Some of his most important commissions, including Christ of
Clemency (1603-06), are in Seville Cathedral. Montanes was an
important influence on his contemporaries
Velazquez,
Zurbaran, and
Alonso Cano. Cano gradually adopted more elegant shapes in his work,
aiming at a softer and more idealized approach, in both his
sculpture and his painting.
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Gregorio
Hernandez
(1576— 1636)
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Gregorio Hernandez
Pieta (detail)
1616
Museo de Bellas Artes, Valladolid, Spain |
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Juan Montanez
The Merciful Christ
c. 1603
Polychromed wood
Cathedral, Seville
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Juan
Martinez
Montanes(b Alcala la Real (Jaen),
bapt 16 March 1568; d Seville, 18 June 1649).
Spanish sculptor. He strove constantly for perfection, and,
although he did not paint his own statues, he arranged for
polychrome to be added by the most competent masters.
Montanes was frequently sought for prestigious sculptural
commissions in Seville, and he ran the most complete and
organized workshop in the city, with an enormous production,
similar to that run by Gregorio Fernandez in Valladolid. The
names of many of his collaborators are known, which implies
that he was the director of a large enterprise. He planned
and directed work and carried out the execution of
appropriate parts or whole works as requested by his
customers.
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Juan Montanez
The Merciful Christ (detail)
c. 1603
Polychromed wood
Cathedral, Seville
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Juan Montanez
The Adoration of the Shepherds
1609-13
Wood
San Isidoro del Campo, Santiponce
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Juan Montanez
St Ignatius Loyola (detail)
c. 1610
Polychromed wood
Chapel, Seville University
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Juan Montanez
Bust on a Reliquiary
Painted wood, height: 30 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
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ARCHITECTURE IN MADRID
During the 17th century, a huge amount of new building and urban
development took place in Madrid, reflecting its new role as the
capital city. The most important buildings were for the Royal Court.
During the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the Alcazar Palace,
in the westernmost part of the city, was enlarged and altered, from
1561 onwards, under the supervision of Juan Bautista de Toledo (the
building was destroyed in a fire in 1734). He was succeeded as the
leading court architect by Juan Gomez de Mora, who also designed the
Plaza Mayor and was involved in the construction of El Escorial, the
huge monastery-palace in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama
near Madrid, built at Philip Us behest. Alonso Carbonel and Giovanni Crescenzi (1577-1660) also worked on El Escorial, as well as
designing the Palace of the Buen Retiro (1623-29), the sovereign's
summer residence in eastern Madrid, which was partially destroyed in
1640. A Jesuit priest, Francisco Bautista (1594-1678), was appointed
architect of the new cathedral of St Isidore.
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The Escorial,
by Juan Bautista de Toledo, Juan de Herrera,
at near Madrid, Spain,
1562 to 1584.
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Juan Bautista de Toledo
(From Wikipedia)
Juan Bautista de Toledo (died May 19, 1567)
was a well-known Spanish sculptor and architect from
Madrid.
Nothing is known of his birth or childhood, but in
1547, Toledo went to Rome and studied under Michelangelo
Buonarroti. He went next to Naples, where he had been
summoned by the Viceroy, Don Pietro de Toledo, to work
as an architect for Charles V. He designed many
buildings there, including: the Strada di Toledo (since
1870 called Strada di Roma), the church of St. Giacomo
degli Spagnuoli; the square bastions to the Castello
Nuovo; a large palazzo at Posillipo, and a number of
fountains. In 1559, he was summoned back to Madrid by
Philip II and appointed Architect-in-Chief of the royal
works in Spain. His yearly salary as architect to the
Crown was at first no more than 220 ducats, because
Philip's policy, with his Spanish artists at least, was
to give them moderate allowances until he had tested
their abilities. In Madrid, he designed the Casa de la
Misericordia and the façade of the church de las
Descalzas Reales. He also created works at Aceca; at the
palace of Aranjuez; at Martininos de las Posadas, the
palace of Cardinal Espinosa, and a villa at Esteban de
Ambran for the secretary D. de Vargas. Toledo's final
work was the Escorial, which he supervised until his
death.
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Plaza Mayor, Madrid, begun 1590
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Plaza Mayor of Madrid
(From Wikipedia)
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The Plaza Mayor is a central
plaza in the city
of Madrid,
Spain. The Plaza
Mayor is only a few blocks away from another famous plaza, the
Puerta del Sol. The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape, 129 by 94 meters,
and is surrounded by three-floored residential buildings with 237 balconies. It
has a total of nine entranceways. The Plaza Mayor was built during the Austrian
period. The
Casa de la Panadería, serving municpal and cultural functions, dominates the
Plaza Mayor. The origins of the Plaza go back to 1581 when
Philip II of Spain asked
Juan de Herrera, a renowned
Renaissance architect, to devise a plan to remodel the busy and chaotic area
of the old Plaza del Arrabal. Juan de Herrera was the architect who designed the
first project in 1581 to remodel the old Plaza del Arrabal but the construction
didn't start until 1617, during the
Philip III of Spain's reign. The king asked Juan Gomez de Mora to continue with the project, and he finished the
porticoes in 1619. Nevertheless, the Plaza Mayor as we know it today is the work
of the architect
Juan de Villanueva who was entrusted with its reconstruction in 1790 after a
spate of big fires.
Juan de Bolonia's statue of Philip III on horseback in the center of the
square dates back to 1616.
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Juan de Herrera, Juan Gomez de MoraThe Plaza Mayor
16th century; completed 1619
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Juan Gomez de Mora
Casa de la Villa, Plaza de la Villa
one source says 1630; another 1644
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El Escorial, south facade, begun 1563
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El Escorial, begun 1563
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(From Wikipedia)
The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (in
Spanish, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial) is an
immense palace, monastery, museum, and library complex located at
San Lorenzo de El Escorial (also San Lorenzo del Escorial), a
town 45 kilometres (28 miles) northwest of Madrid in the autonomous
community of Madrid in Spain.
At the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, the
complex was commanded by King Philip II of Spain as a necropolis for
the Spanish monarchs and the seat of studies in aid of the
Counter-Reformation. It was designed by the architects Juan
Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera in an austere
classical style, and built from 1563 to 1584. It is shaped as a grid
in memory of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. It is said that during
the battle of Saint Quentin (1557), the Spanish troops destroyed a
small hermitage devoted to Lawrence. The King Philip II of Spain
decided to dedicate the monastery to the saint in thanks for his
victory.
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Francisco Bautista, interior of Cathedral of St Isidore,
Madrid, c 1622-60
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see also collection:
Francisco Zurbaran
Alonso Cano
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Francisco Ribalta
Juan Valdes Leal
Juan Carreno de Miranda
Claudio Coello
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