Page 22 - The mystery of faith

Fig. 6a The hegemony of the Italian Renaissance
Fig. 6b over sixteenth-century Spanish sculpture has
been emphasized by art historians. When
Manuel Gómez-Moreno published his book
on the ‘eagles of the Spanish Renaissance’ in
1941 he wrote exclusively about Diego de
Siloé, Bartolomé Ordóñez, Pedro Machuca
and Alonso Berruguete, all of whom had
studied in Italy.8 This emphasis on the most
Italianate artists working in Spain in the
sixteenth century suggests that the ‘peculiar’
Spanish tradition of polychrome sculpture
was nearly abandoned in favour of carvings
in white stone. For art historians, at that
time Italian influence was considered a great
step forward in the stylistic development of
Spanish art. In 1943 Harold E. Wethey went
so far as to note that Diego de Siloé and
Bartolomé Ordóñez must have been in Italy
for some time before they created the
Caracciolo altar, ‘since by that date they
were mature artists, proficient in the style of
the Italian Renaissance and showing hardly a
trace of their Spanish origin [emphasis
added]’.9 However, Alonso Berruguete
created some fine polychromed bas-reliefs,
and his contemporary and fellow Mannerist
Juan de Juni (c. 1507 Joigny, France–1577),
who from 1533 worked in León, Salamanca
and Valladolid, created a deeply moving
series of gilded and painted sculptural groups (Figs. 6a, b) depicting the Burial of Christ and the Pietà
(Valladolid, Museo Nacional Colegio de San Gregorio).

Polychrome sculpture thus did not entirely cede to Italian models in the sixteenth century, and it
returned with vigour in the seventeenth century, when it was favoured by Spanish patrons of the arts,
churchmen and laity alike. Marble and bronze sculptures continued to be rare in seventeenth-century
Spain, and even alabaster fell out of use. While in the rest of Europe sculptural styles swung between a
sedate, classicizing style as practiced in Italy by Alessandro Algardi and the feverishly energetic ‘High
Baroque’ style of Gianlorenzo Bernini, the preferred sculptural style in Spain has been simply described
as ‘Realism’.10 And realism, in the Spanish tradition, required colour.

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