Sculpture in Spain

by Albert Frederick Calvert

No altar-screen in Spain is more beautiful or more worthy of study than the one in the Capilla Mayor of Tarragona Cathedral. It illustrates the life of St. Tecla, the disciple of St. Paul, and the tutelary saint of Tarragona, who was martyred, according to legend, on this spot. We read the story in the delightful Légende Dorée of Jaques de Voragine:—

“St. Paul was seized and conveyed to prison, whither his disciple Tecla followed him. The apostle and the maiden were judged together, and together condemned: he to be beaten with rods and driven from the city, she to be burned alive. She threw herself joyously on to the pyre, but immediately a heavy shower of rain fell from the sky and extinguished the flames; also a great earthquake occurred, in which perished a great number of pagans. By this means Tecla was enabled to escape. She took refuge in the house where St. Paul was living, and was overjoyed to meet the inspirer of her conversion. She wished to cut her hair and travel with him, disguised as a man. But this the apostle would not permit, for she had great beauty.”

In the Tarragona screen charming pinnacles crown a bas-relief representing the Virgin and her Child, to the right and left of which stand St. Paul and St. Tecla, figures of heroic size, who regard the group with pious emotion. Beside them are bas-reliefs, most minutely executed, representing scenes in the saint’s life. In one we see her as described by Voragine, with serene face, her body nude, and praying in the midst of the flames which envelop without burning her. Angels encourage and sustain her, while below are seen the grinning heads of the damned. In another scene the saint is surrounded by reptiles and wild beasts in the cave into which she was thrown; and in yet another she stands beside a bull, destined to drag and crush her body among the stones of the road. Between the bas-reliefs are statues of prophets, apostles, and saints; and on brackets, in the midst of foliage, repose female saints with smiling faces. All the figures are carved with great skill, and besides there is a wealth of detail—flowers, foliage, animals, and insects—all of which are treated with surprising ability.

The colourisation of the screen, like most marble and alabaster monuments, has suffered from repeated and careless washings. But the carvings preserve everywhere vestiges of paint and gilt, so that it is possible to reconstruct the scheme of colour. This is curious—generally blue and gold, with only a few touches of red and brown, which M. Marcel Dieulafoy suggests may be due to the artist’s desire to surround St. Tecla by the virginal and holy atmosphere which would be suggested by this manifold and unusual use of blue tones. This realisation of the spiritual expression of a legend is very characteristic of Spain, whose artists possessed as their greatest gift the power of rendering a story just as they felt it had happened.

We owe the Tarragona altar-screen to a native Catalan artist. It was begun in 1426 by Pedro Juan de Vallfongona, who executed the bas-reliefs and statues of the first two stages, while at the same time the artist Guillermo de la Monta worked on the architecture and ornaments. But in 1436 Pedro Juan, gaining favour from the beauty of his work, was called to execute an altar for Zaragoza Cathedral, after which he only retained a sort of inspectorship over the work at Tarragona, which was finished by Guillermo de la Monta.

Pedro Juan worked on the Zaragoza altar-screen until his death in 1447, aided by Pedro Garces, Guillermo Monta, and Pedro Navarro. For some reason the work was suspended for twenty-six years, when, on account of the great age of the original collaborators, it was entrusted to Gil Morlau, with Gabriel Gombao to aid him in the inferior parts. Finally the screen was completed and gilded and painted in 1480.

The altar-screen of Zaragoza has some fine bas-reliefs; the most important is that of the centre, which shows the Adoration of the Magi. The Virgin, seated, presents her Babe to the Kings, figures of vigorous life and great dignity, who bend in worship as they offer their gifts; behind, a group of figures represent a crowd of onlookers. On either side of this central composition are bas-reliefs representing scenes in the Transfiguration, lives of the Virgin, and Ascension of Christ: these are the work of Pedro Juan.

Another important retablo, which follows in date the work of Pedro Juan, is that in the Capilla de Santiago (Plate 56) in the Cathedral of Toledo. It is made of larch wood, and carved, gilded, and painted in the richest Gothic style. The bas-reliefs represent scenes in the New Testament; all the figures are life size. We owe this work to the artists Sancho de Zamora, Juan de Segovia, and Pedro Gumiel, and it was begun at the end of the fifteenth century. In the same chapel at Toledo are the six magnificent Gothic tombs of Don Álvaro de Luna, the work of Pablo Ortiz, one of the most famous carvers in the fifteenth century (Plate 58). Another interesting altar-screen is that in the Capilla de la Trinidad (Plate 59).

In the carvings of these later altar-screens and tombs a new influence will be traced; for, in the last third of the fifteenth century, what may truly be termed a revolution in style took place in Spanish sculpture. A stronger realistic tendency, with a more marked individuality in the portraits, will be seen. The characteristic features are more emphasised, the gestures more free and more individual. Waved lines give place to broken ones, rounded surfaces to sharp-edged ones. This heightened vitality was due not only to a greater mastery of the technical part of sculpture by the native artists, but to a newly imported art inspiration, which now began to mingle with, and even to replace, the influences of France and Burgundy.

Up till about 1400 Spain was loyal to France, and kept her artists as her teachers and advisers. Afterwards Burgundy displaced France, and we have the far-reaching influence of the great ecclesiastical orders. Now followed the rule of the Netherlands and of Germany. In the fifteenth century Spain was brought into close connection with the Low Countries. The intermarrying of the royal houses of Burgundy and Hapsburg united the Northern countries first with Portugal, and afterwards with Spain. The result of this union was a great advancement in Spain’s art. The first of the Northerners to come to Spain were painters, and we have the visit of Jan van Eyck, in 1428, with its far-reaching consequences to Spanish painting; then followed architects and sculptors. A Flemish painter was adopted by the Count of Aragon about 1440; and the Cartuja of Miraflores has a small altar-screen of which the wings were painted by him. The archives of Toledo mention a great number of Flemish artists of renown, who settled and worked in the city, among whom were Juan and Bernardino of Brussels, whose names are often mentioned by Cean Bermudez, and the four brothers Egas from Eycken, one of whom, Anequin, was appointed architect of the cathedral by the chapter, and directed the work of the sculptures of the Gate of the Lions, being assisted by Fernandez de Liena and Juan Givas, also an architect of the cathedral. Then we know that at Burgos worked the Colonia family, Juan, Simeon, and Francisco, who carved the woodwork of the cathedral and that of the Cartuja of Miraflores. There were also Northern artists in Seville. Mateo and Nicolas were skilful goldsmiths, and Cristobal—all of whom probably came from Germany—was a painter on glass. Juan Aleman, in 1512, finished the choir-stalls of the cathedral, George Fernandez Aleman carved the retablo, while another artist of the same name, Rodrigo Aleman, sculptured the wainscoting of Palencia Cathedral, whose invention and humour, Professor Carl Justi says, recall the South German masters.