Page 202 - The mystery of faith

Fig. 2a Fig. 2b

(Figs. 2a, b) from Berruguete’s altarpiece of La Mejorada (Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid).
His faces are typified by an emotional expressiveness – particularly evident in Saint Anne and her maid –
that communicates a deep agitation of the spirit, and constitutes possibly the defining characteristic of
Alonso Berruguete’s work: his urge to release the intangible and the divine from the solid as in the relief
of La Visitación from the Convent of Santa Ursula in Toledo (Fig. 3).

For example, in the present relief the head of the shepherd appears to follow a classical (almost Hellenistic)
model, and the locks of his long hair seem charged with energy, as well this humble figure might be in
witnessing such a divine moment. The first time we encounter a similar figure is in Berruguete’s Adoration
of the Magi, from the Santiago parish in Valladolid (Fig. 4). In this composition, Berruguete appears to
have deliberately depicted the hands so that they appear odd, with strange fingers and in physically
impossible poses. The hands recall the template technique used for the choir stalls from Toledo Cathedral,
in which a variety of hands, feet and heads would be modelled from plaster impressions, and then later
incorporated by Berruguete’s assistants into the figure for the corresponding seat.

The draperies in Giralte’s relief are depicted in such thick, heavy folds they must surely have been
modelled on the cloths that made Castile famous in European markets and fairs. Like felt, the cloth,
when crumpled, formed great folds, and therefore, in terms of sculptural representation, was very
efficient for imparting monumentality and gravitas in the figures, regardless of their size. Giralte’s style
has a tense monumentality, evident in the present relief. Doubtless, this aspect of his style was Giralte’s
response to the influence exercised by Juan de Juni, whom he greatly admired, despite being, at the
same time, his rival in Valladolid. Both artists maintained a historical lawsuit in relation to the award
of the altarpiece commission for Santa María Antigua, Valladolid. The document relating to this
lawsuit is of major importance for our knowledge of Giralte because it provides us with most of the
facts that form his biography.4

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