THE RENAISSANCE, AND THE INFLUENCE OF MICHAEL ANGELO
(_continued_)--THE SCHOOLS OF VALLADOLID AND MADRID
After the middle of the sixteenth century a change came, or rather, a
further step was taken in the use of Italian forms, and a style was
evolved which may be said with sufficient accuracy to correspond to the
developed Renaissance of Italy.
Gaspar Becerra was now the most prominent sculptor in Spain. Like
Berruguete, whose rival and true successor he was, he received his
artistic training in Italy; like him, too, he was a painter and
architect as well as sculptor. It is said that Becerra worked in the
studio of Michael Angelo, but Vasari, whose pupil he was, does not count
him among the disciples of the great Florentine. He was born at Baeza, a
small town in the kingdom of Jaen, in 1520. He was still quite young
when he went to Italy. In Rome he gained a position of importance
working under the leadership of his master, Vasari, and under Daniele da
Volterra in the Trinita de Monti, decorating in the Cancelleria. His
skill in drawing, especially the human figure, was great, and he
furnished the plates for Valverde’s “Anatomy,” printed in Rome in 1554.
We know also that he was married in Rome in 1556. Five years later he
returned to Spain, and like his predecessor he became painter and
sculptor to Philip II. Becerra worked at the decoration of the Pardo
palace, and painted frescoes in the Alcazar of Madrid, which were
destroyed in the fire of 1734; in addition he designed, sculptured, and
painted the altar-screen of the Convent of Dèscalzas Reales in the same
city, working for the Infanta Doña Maria, while for the Queen, Doña
Isabel de la Paz, he sculptured the statue of Nuestra Señora de la
Solitude, which is worshipped in the chapel of the Minime fathers. This
position as Court artist caused Becerra’s services to be eagerly sought,
and carvings and paintings of his will be found at Zamora, Valladolid,
Zaragoza, Burgos, Salamanca, and elsewhere. His masterpiece, and his
last work, is the retablo in the Church of Astorga, on which he worked
from 1550 to 1569. He died at Madrid in 1571, when still young and in
the height of his activity and power.
The merit of Becerra’s work is a feeling for ideal beauty, unusual in
Spain, united with dignity and, to some degree, with strength. All his
sculptures are in the style of Michael Angelo; and this has led to a
confusion between his carvings and those of Berruguete. But this is a
mistake. Berruguete, though a follower of Michael Angelo, was Spanish
with a strong national accent, while Becerra was an Italian, completely
renouncing the national traditions in favour of Renaissance forms. For
this reason his work is far less important than that of his predecessor;
it also opened the road for the degeneration of native sculpture.
Becerra made the study of Michael Angelo and the antique the substitute
for a study of nature, and possessing a happy knack of pleasing the eye,
he was content to be an imitator, and therefore added nothing to Spanish
sculpture.
A good example of Becerra’s art, and his best single carving, is the
small polychrome bas-relief of St Jerome in the Desert (Plate 123) in
the side altar of the Capilla del Condestable at Burgos. There are
several copies of this statue, for, like many imitators, Becerra
repeated his works; one, in white marble, is in the Church of San Pedro
at Huesca. On account of its likeness to the St. Jerome, M. Marcel
Dieulafoy attributes to Becerra the statue of the prophet Elias in Santo
Tomás at Toledo, the church that contains the masterpiece of El Greco.
The retablo at Astorga, Becerra’s most important work, is an imposing
erection, much praised in Spain. The effect is pleasing, but a closer
examination leaves the spectator unsatisfied; the statues and carvings
are all modelled on Renaissance types, and are without individuality.
Still this retablo must not be neglected; it is a good example of
_estofado_ sculpture.
Contemporary with Berruguete worked Juan de Juni, who carried the
Michael Angelo following to its furthest and most exaggerated
development. Little is known about this artist; even his nationality is
uncertain, some accounting him a Spaniard, others an Italian, or even a
Fleming. Bermudez thinks he was an Italian. But though a pupil and close
imitator of Michael Angelo, Juni, if not born in Spain, became a
Spaniard by temperament and adoption, as the style of his work proves.
In his carvings we find that search for expression at any cost, leading
to exaggerated gestures and an over-accentuation of detail, as for
example in depicting the sorrows of the Christ by gaping wounds and the
presence of blood--by which the Spanish artists sought to give dramatic
reality to their religious representation. It is this that has caused
Juni to be so highly estimated in Spain.
The details of Juni’s life are fragmentary and contradictory. For long
he was said to have been born during the second half of the sixteenth
century, and to have died at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
In reality he lived earlier, and was born in 1507, while he died at
Valladolid in April 1577. We hear of him first about the middle of the
sixteenth century, when the Archbishop of Portugal summoned him from
Rome to superintend the building and decoration of the Episcopal palace
at Oporto. This he did, as well as constructing other buildings in the
city. Afterwards he went to Osuna, then to Santoyo, and finally to
Valladolid, where he settled, and remained until his death.
Juni has left a great amount of work, and his statues and bas-reliefs,
always easily recognised, will be found in the churches and convents of
Osuna, Segovia, Valladolid, Santoyo, Aranda de Douro, and Salamanca. His
best-known altar-screen is the Descent from the Cross in Segovia
Cathedral (Plate 124). In this surprising work we have well displayed
both the qualities and defects of Juni’s talents. Instead of the
decoration being carried out in compartments, the carvings are in
isolated groups, a change in construction which was the greatest service
that Juni rendered to Spanish sculpture. The figures are all life-size;
the finest is that of the Christ, which has real dignity, and is without
exaggeration. The agitation and grief of the Virgin and the holy women
is too much emphasised, while the attitudes of the fantastically attired
soldiers placed on either side are so accentuated that one is left with
a consciousness of insincerity. The dramatic power becomes theatrical
and unreal. Contrast this Descent from the Cross with Berruguete’s
rendering of the same scene in San Geronimo at Granada, and this becomes
abundantly evident. The restraint in the latter work is strength, while
Juni’s scene, with its over-acclamation, ends in weakness. But in Spain
the Segovia screen is highly treasured. It is brilliantly coloured. We
have no proof that Juni himself polychromed his statues, but we know
that he was a painter of great talent, and the harmony which exists
between his models and the colouring seems to prove that he must have
superintended the polychrome. Documentary evidence shows that in some
cases, at any rate, the colourisation was done in his studio, under his
direction, and that he himself painted the faces, the hands, and the
feet of his figures.
The same model of the Segovia Christ can be recognised in another work
of Juni’s, the Burial of Christ, executed for the Convent of San
Francesco at Valladolid, and now in the city museum (Plate 125). Here we
have an even stronger example of Juni’s art, in which the conception of
woe is depicted with greater extravagance, and with what appears to us
as futile exaggeration of the details of sorrow. Death is shown with
startling reality in the body of the Christ, which is rigid with the
muscles already contracted, and the reality is carried further by the
colouring; the limbs and the face are mottled with livid stains. Blood
flows from the wounds, which are laid open. The body is horrible with
the sense of human corruption. The figures of the Virgin, St. John, and
the Magdalen all express passionate and over-emphatic sorrow. But the
work is perfectly sincere; to doubt this is to misunderstand the nature
of Spanish art. It is the quality that meets us so often; a too
dramatic, too emphatic effort to realise a scene exactly as it happened.
Another carving in the same style, with the same faults and the same
qualities, is the Virgin of the Swords in the monastery Capilla de
Nuestra Señora de las Agustinas, also at Valladolid. It must be
remembered that these works can be appreciated only by the student who
understands Spanish art. Certainly Juni is more Spanish than Italian.
Juan de Juni opened the way for his successor Gregorio Hernandez, the
sculptor who may be said to have inherited, and afterwards personally
expressed, all that his predecessors had accomplished. For the great
difference between Juni, Becerra, and even Berruguete and the great
master of Galicia is that they, in greater or less degree, were content
with imitation, while he, warned possibly by their extravagances,
studied nature with patient care, and said what he had to say for
himself, and in this way he purged the plastic art of scholastic
mannerisms. This is why Gregorio Hernandez occupies the most important
position in the history of Northern Spanish sculpture.
Gregorio Hernandez did not study in Italy, indeed it has been said that
he never went from Valladolid. But this is a mistake. He studied and
worked in that city, but we know that he was married in Madrid, and that
in 1604 he was in Vittoria, executing the altar-screen for the Church of
San Miguel. No actual mention is made of Hernandez’ residence in
Valladolid before the year 1605, when in certain contracts we find that
he acted as assistant sculptor to the Italian artist Millan Vilmercati.
M. Marcel Dieulafoy places the date of his first coming to Valladolid
about 1601, the year in which a number of famous artists were summoned
to the royal city by Philip II. and the Duke of Lerma.
Of the life of Hernandez we know few details. He was born in Galicia in
1570, a date furnished by the inscription on his portrait, now in the
Museum of Valladolid. He died in 1636 at the age of sixty-six, as is
shown by the register in the archives of the Church of San Ildefonso. It
would seem that he never left Spain. His first known work undertaken as
a sculptor was the altar-screen of San Miguel at Vittoria, but he must
have executed earlier carvings, as is proved by the payments made for
this work--4208 reals for the sculpture, and over 604 reals for the
statues in relief--and also by the importance of the position he
occupied. Hernandez directed the whole work, choosing as his assistants
the master-carpenter Cristobal Velazquez, and the painters Francesco
Martinez and Pedro de Salazar.
The activity of Hernandez was very great. From the date of this
altar-screen we have a vast number of carvings executed, or supposed to
have been executed by him. His studio became the centre of the artistic
activities of his day, for the amount of his work necessitated the
employment of assistants. This has led to confusion, and there are many
carvings attributed to Hernandez which cannot be accepted as the work of
his own hand. It is fortunate that the distinctive qualities of his work
make it possible to recognise at once those carvings and statues that
have been fathered on his name. Hernandez placed special importance on
the colourisation of his statues. In an interesting contract made with
his habitual polychromist, Diego Valentin Diaz, we find the most minute
details laid down, enforcing the care with which the work is to be
carried out. The colours chosen “are to be those which are permanent”;
“the flesh must be _mate_,” as, it will be remembered, was enforced by
Pacheco, and “in each case the colouring must be suitable to the model
painted,” as, for example, “Jesus the tint of an infant, the Virgin that
of a young woman, St. Joseph that of a man,” while “the hair and eyes
must also be in harmony.” Also, “gilded stuffs and damasked are to be
avoided,” and “gold is to be used sparingly on laces and fringes only.”
The effect to be aimed at is harmony and truth to nature. It is by this
restriction to a sombre and quiet scheme of colour, so different from
the startling and tumultuous effects, glittering with gold, of Juni, for
instance, that the polychromes of Hernandez may be recognised. His
colours, always quiet, give an effect of having been worked on silver or
ivory. The polychromes that do not manifest these tones are not by
Hernandez; when they bear his name they must have been executed by his
pupils apart from his direction. Examples of such spurious works are the
immense and highly coloured Sta. Teresa in the Valladolid Museum, and
also the _Pasos_, or groups from the Passion, highly praised by the
Spanish writers and used in the religious processions of Valladolid,
which have been attributed, certainly erroneously, to Hernandez.
Authentic works of Hernandez may be seen, first in the churches,
convents, and museum of Valladolid, and also at Madrid, Palencia,
Vittoria, Salamanca, Zamora, Pontevedra, Medina del Campo, and other
towns. But in no case must the attribution to Hernandez be accepted
without an examination of the works themselves. Those which do not
display his qualities, especially in their colourisation, must be
accounted as the work of his pupils.
Hernandez continued the practice of Juni in carving his statues as
separate figures or in isolated groups. Almost without exception he used
wood as his material.
The Museum of Valladolid contains at least three authentic statues by
Hernandez. The most important is the Pietà, executed for one of the
dispersed convents of the city, a beautiful example of polychrome (Plate
126). The Virgin, whose sorrow is genuinely expressed, with dignity and
without exaggeration, supports the dead Christ, a pallid figure finely
suggesting death. She wears a red-brown robe partly covered by a blue
mantle. The winding-sheet and her veil are white, and also the band
attached to the Cross, and are coloured so skilfully that the texture of
the stuffs is clearly discernible. M. Marcel Dieulafoy justly says: “The
grace and freedom of the modelling is only equalled by the variety and
discreet harmony of the painting.” The bas-relief of the Baptism of
Christ (Plate 127), though very different, is a work of equal merit, but
it has suffered greatly from the damage of time, which has especially
injured the beauty of the polychrome. The St. John is a splendid figure
of energy and savage strength, and in strong contrast with the Christ,
and the contrast is emphasised by the skilful colouring, the complexion
of the prophet being browned by exposure to the sun, while that of the
Christ is of delicate harmony. The third statue represents St. Francis
(Plate 128), a fine and harmonious work. It is coloured in sombre
shades, almost monochrome, which speaks for Hernandez’ authorship.
To Hernandez also is attributed the reliquary bust of St. Elizabeth in
the museum. It is a work of supreme merit, but the polychrome is too
brilliant to make it easy to accept it as the work of Hernandez. The
vivid orange-brown of the cape with the blue lining, the violet-purple
of the turban, the gleaming white of the veil, and the gold tracery of
the breast ornament are not the accustomed tones of the Galician master.
But though the statue is probably not by Hernandez--and this is the
opinion of M. Marcel Dieulafoy--it is a splendid example of polychrome.
The most famed work of Hernandez is the Mater Dolorosa, preserved and
most carefully guarded in the Capilla de la Cruz at Valladolid. The
representation is very Spanish in its frank and detailed statement of
sorrow. Probably no one who is not Spanish can wholly appreciate the
statue. The tears, made of glass set in wood, the reflected stains of
blood on the yellow robe and on the sleeves, the pallid face and
colourless lips, the deep-set eyes made tragic with bistre rings, the
emphasised attitude especially of the hands, do not appeal to those to
whom the divine tragedy represented is not a living reality--a part of
human life, not an incident of belief. It is necessary to take notice of
these things in judging the most Spanish of Spanish sculptures. In this
Virgin Hernandez is nearer to Juan de Juni, but his representation of
the Mother of Sorrows is much simpler, much nearer to nature--Spanish
nature, not our nature, let it be remembered--and therefore his work
leaves a deeper and more lasting impression. The Christ at the Column in
the Convent of the Carmelites at Avila is another statue of a similar
character which is attributed to Hernandez.
The influence of Gregorio Hernandez was far-reaching, and the native
sculptors of the seventeenth century, not only in Valladolid but also in
the newly-founded school of Madrid, followed in his traditions.
Certainly it was his work, with its strong national accent, its
sincerity and close following of nature, which in the Northern schools
saved Spanish sculpture in large measure from the degradation which, at
the close of the seventeenth century, fell upon the sister art of
painting.
Gregorio Hernandez had many pupils. We have mentioned Cristobal
Velazquez, the master-carpenter who worked with him on the altar-screen
of Vittoria. It is probable that he became the pupil of the Galician
master. To Cristobal Velazquez must be attributed the beautiful
altar-screen of the Church of Las Agustinas at Valladolid, which has
been falsely ascribed to Berruguete and to Pompeo Leoni. The references
made to Cristobal Velazquez in the contracts for the work, and the fact
that he was charged with the “looking over and passing” of the screen
after it had been set up, prove his authorship. No mention either of
Berruguete or Pompeo Leoni is given, an omission unaccountable if these
great artists had participated in the work, when the painters and
sculptors are all carefully named. This altar-piece proves that
Cristobal Velazquez was a great artist. In the central bas-relief of the
Annunciation the Virgin kneels, while the Angel Gabriel, a figure of
supreme beauty and nobility, stands upon her right side. Above is a fine
Pietà, and to the right and left are the figures of St. Augustin and St.
Laurent; while beneath are statuettes of the Evangelists, with two
small panels on either side, one of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus, the
other of St. Ursula. The architecture, the ornaments, and figures are
all finely executed, and the work is one of great beauty and harmony.
Unfortunately the colouring, which was carried out by the painter Prado,
an artist of great local celebrity who had already decorated the Chapel
of Las Huelgas, Burgos, has become so blackened with age that it is
difficult to judge its primitive merit.
Two sculptors intimately associated with Gregorio Hernandez were Luis de
Llamosa, who completed many of his master’s unfinished works, and Juan
Francisco de Hibarne, his favourite pupil, to whom he gave his daughter
Damiana in marriage. Carvings by these artists will be found in several
of the churches of Valladolid.
But of greater fame was the Portuguese sculptor Manuel Pereyra, who,
though reported to have studied in Italy, must certainly have been the
pupil of Hernandez, if we may judge from the testimony of his works.
They show no trace of Italian influence, and are inspired by the
earnestness of Spanish devotion. We first hear of Pereyra in May 1646,
when he carved in stone the statue of San Felipe for the convent of the
saint at Valladolid. His reputation grew rapidly, and his statue of St.
Bruno, executed for the Hostel of the Chartreuse del Paula, set the seal
to his fame. The statue was so greatly admired that it is said that King
Philip IV. ordered his coachman, on passing the door, to slacken the
pace so that he might admire it at leisure. There is a fine replica of
the St. Bruno in the Chartreuse of Miraflores. Like Hernandez, Pereyra
used quiet colours, without gilding or damask effects. In his last years
Pereyra became blind, but this calamity does not seem to have interfered
with his carving. He died in 1667.
It would seem to be by the aid of Manuel Pereyra that the influence of
Gregorio Hernandez was carried to Madrid. But in this work he was
supported by Alonso de los Rios, a carver of intelligence, taste, and
skill, who was born in Valladolid about 1650, and who early went to
Madrid. In his studio worked Juan de Villanueva and his two sons Juan
and Alfonso Rios, who directed the art of carving in the capital during
the first years of the eighteenth century. Afterwards in the studio of
Rios worked Luis Salvador Carmona, whose talent was so marked that on
the death of his master he became its director. Under his guidance the
Madrid school became so famous that Ferdinand VI. in 1752 transformed it
into the Royal Academy of San Fernando. The greater number of Carmona’s
carvings are at Madrid. They are single statues and bas-reliefs. He does
not appear to have carved an altar-screen. For altar-screens, that had
been required by the churches, had now fallen in the popular esteem, due
to a weakening of the strong religious impulses that for so long had
directed the expression of art. Carmona also executed forty-two small
statues for the parish of Seguro in Biscay. But his finest works are his
two statues at Salamanca. Both are in the cathedral--one, a Pietà, known
as La Dolorosa, in the Capilla de San José (Plate 131); the other, a
Flagellation of the Christ (Plate 132), is in the sacristy. These
realistic and emotional groups are the works by which Carmona must be
judged. They witness that he had through his masters inherited the
traditions of Gregorio Hernandez, though his work is less sincere and
without the Galician master’s fine truth to nature. In Spain Carmona is
accounted a master, but this praise is too high. This much may be
granted to him: his works have great, even surprising, merit when we
take into consideration the period at which they were executed.
If the influence of Gregorio Hernandez speaks in the artists we have
just considered, it is to the influence of the impassioned and dramatic
Juan de Juni we must turn to account for those tragic representations of
severed heads of martyrs, depicted with such strange delight in all the
details of horror and putrefaction, of which we find many examples
belonging to the late seventeenth century. Such heads, representing most
frequently St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, or St. Anastasius, may be
seen in many places--Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Zaragoza, the cathedral
and hospital church at Granada, and the Monastery of Santa Clara at
Seville are a few examples. The Museum of Valladolid possesses two heads
of St. Paul. The finer one, taken from the Convent of St. Paul, is the
work of Alonso Villabrille, a sculptor of Madrid who lived at the end of
the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. It is perhaps
the best example of these astonishing heads (Plate 133). The polychrome
is carried out with great care, and the horror of the dissevered head is
lessened by the beard which shields the severed neck.
The influence of Gregorio Hernandez did much to stay the deterioration
which now, at the end of the seventeenth century, threatened the plastic
arts of Northern Spain. The baroque style was introduced with
disastrous results, and we find the ugly, overloaded, exaggerated
decoration known as Churriguera. Perhaps the greatest evil was the
destruction of many of the old Gothic and classic altar-screens, with
their beautiful polychrome statues. Images were carved with apparatus
for moving the head and eyes, and the mouth. These figures were really
wooden dolls, with real hair and real dresses, in which only the head
and hands were carved: they mark the lowest level of the plastic arts. A
notorious example is the Transparente in the Cathedral of Toledo,
executed by Narciso Tomé in 1752.
It is remarkable that side by side with these degraded works we find a
number of bas-reliefs and statues in which the earnestness of the
Spanish religious spirit has inspired the baroque form. We may mention
as especially worthy of study, a Conception in Palencia Cathedral, and a
superb monument let into the wall on the right of the great altar; a
beautiful Virgin in the Chapel of Ayuntamiento, Pampeluna; the Madonna
over the high altar of Cuenca; the kneeling figure of an archbishop in
San Andrés at Avila; and the magnificent tomb of Cardinal Valdés in the
Church of the Sala, Oviedo. This last work is a masterpiece.