Keeping the faith: Spain joins the Renaissance
The Renaissance took a while to get its claws into
Spain, its Italianate themes slow to outmanoeuvre
the Flemish hold on Spanish creativity. Artists began
making the trip from Iberia to Rome in the early 16th
century, witnessing first-hand the revival of all things
classical. Some stayed in Italy, others returned home
buoyed by new ideas. However, while they took new
styles, colours and techniques onboard, few adopted
the classical themes or nudes of the Renaissance,
keeping instead to the religious subject matter
entrenched in Spanish art. Among the first to visit Rome
was Pedro Berruguete who blended Flemish and Italian
styles back in Spain. His son, Alonso Berruguete went
much further, adopting the artificial perspective and
bright colours of Mannerism, as practiced by the likes of
Michelangelo. His religious figures generally came in
two states: ecstatic or tormented.Today, Berruguete is
actually better known in Spain as the nation’s prime
Renaissance sculptor. Choir stalls inToledo Cathedral
and an altar in the Irish College of Salamanca bear his
stirring style in polychrome wood.Royal subjects
The mid 16thcentury finally saw a clutch of Spanish
painters pull away from religious themes. Usually they
painted royalty instead. A Dutchman in the royal court,
Antonius Mor van Dashorst (the Spanish called him
Antonio Moro), set the tone with a portrait ofQueen
MaryTudor(1554) that was stiff, large and slavish in
its attention to detail on clothes and jewellery. Alonso
Sánchez Coello and Juan Pantoja de la Cruz followed in
Moro’s brushstrokes, the former grappling with the mix
of formal decoration and revealing facial expressions
that would later inform Velázquez’ work. Coello has
been called the leading portraitist of Renaissance Spain.114- 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
The da Vinci effect
Leonardo da Vinci had
an important impact on
Spain’s interpretation of
the High Renaissance.
Fernando Yáñez and his
painting partner Fernando
Llanos both trained in Italy
and returned to Spain
with Leonardo’s passion
for compositional order
and statuesque figures.
One of the pair, we’re not
sure which, was probably
the ‘Spanish Fernando’
recorded as working with
Leonardo in Florence in
- Two years later the
Fernandos collaborated on
the altarpiece of Valencia
cathedral, painting 12
scenes from the life of
the Virgin.
Artists’ log
Polychrome wood is
basically wood that’s
been carved and then
painted. The technique
was particularly
popular among Spain’s
Renaissance sculptors,
used to make the
naturalistic figures that
were placed in churches
or carried aloft down
streets during the
Semana Santa.
3.1.3 Spanish art in the Renaissance