Page 145 - The mystery of faith

conclude that these works date slightly later
than previously thought.5 Dabrio González
did not recognize Arce’s stylistic influence
in these works.

In recent years there have been major
advances in our understanding of Arce’s
influence on sculptors in Seville and Cadiz.
Previously, the impact of Arce on the
development of Andalusian sculpture had
not been given sufficient consideration.
However, the most recent publications
dedicated to José de Arce, his disciples and
followers (Felipe de Ribas, Jacinto
Pimentel, Alfonso Martínez, Francisco
Gálvez, Andres Cansino and Pedro Roldán)
contain a more detailed analysis of his
works. This analysis allows us to acquire a
closer understanding of their stylistic
development. This is, in fact, rather more
complex than, for example, plotting a
straight line between Martínez Montañés
and Pedro Roldán to explain the progress
of Mannerism into naturalism in Spanish
sculpture (a trajectory that would be
simplistic to the point of error, in any case). The first sculptors to absorb the technical advances of José
de Arce were Jacinto Pimentel and Felipe de Ribas, younger artists who studied in the workshop of
Francisco de Ocampo and Juan de Mesa, respectively. In the work produced by both Martínez
Montañés and Alonso Cano around the middle of the 1630s, a date that coincides with the arrival of
Arce in Seville, one can see their development of a smoother, more refined surface technique, the forms
articulated with a minimum of detail. Examples by Martínez Montañés include the Saint John the
Baptist altarpiece made for the Monastery of Saint Paula in Seville (on which Felipe de Ribas assisted);
the Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the Church of Saint Michael of Jerez; and the seated Saint John the
Evangelist by Alonso Cano, now in the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladollid. One has only to
compare this last example with works made by Cano only a few years before for the main altarpiece of
Santa María de la Oliva, in Lebrija (Seville), to appreciate his shift in style.

Our greater understanding of Sevillian sculpture (which includes works in Cadiz, Huelva, Cordoba and
the south of Extremadura), however, does not allow us to securely attribute certain works based solely
on their high quality or evident artistic merit. This is simply due to the fact that throughout the first
twenty years of Arce’s presence in Seville and Jerez, the artwork produced remained formally somewhat

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