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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
In Catalonia, Italian styles of painting influenced the likes of Ferrer Bassa,
court painter to King Pedro IV of Aragón. Alas, virtually none of Bassa’s wall
paintings or manuscripts survive. Another Catalan, Bernat Martorell, drew
more on the International Gothic style of the early 15thcentury, mirroring
trends that were developing across Europe and bringing a more secularised
feel to painting. As witnessed in his altarpiece for Barcelona’s Gothic
cathedral,Transfiguration of the Lord, a rare surviving work, he gave
Spanish painting a new drama, an increased sense of expression. Half a
century later, the Córdoban Bartolemé Bermejo, daubing wood in both
Catalonia and Valencia, pushed the sense of drama further. Borrowing from
Flemish and French painters, artists like Bermejo gave Spain’s obsession
with religious subject matter a more realistic, usually tortured edge in what
became known as Hispano-Flemish Gothic.They did it using the new
medium of the day, oil painting. Bermejo’s disturbing image of Christ’s
death,Pietà of Canon Luis Desplá(c.1490) (see above), another work for
Barcelona Cathedral, harnessed this more sophisticated style of painting,
guiding Spain into the Renaissance.
Bart of the flaming hair
Bartolomé Bermejo
was born Bartolomé de
Cardenas, but apparently
earned the substitute
surname on account of
his ginger hair –bermejo
meaning bright red.
Iberian painters from
the Gothic period are
sometimes referred to as
the Spanish Primitives.
