The religious sculpture of Baroque Spain, its polychrome imagery, offered a clear and general trend. In 17th-century Spain, the economic crisis had the effect of intensifying religion and bringing it closer to the people. The Spanish sculpture of this period, nearly always produced in brightly polychrome wood, treated the various figures of the Passion singly, in isolation, thus bringing an unexpected return to the cultural atmosphere of the Middle Ages. In Spain, the Baroque sculpture ignored the Renaissance styles to purely and simply develop the human quality with pathetic accents. This was characteristic of the sensibility of the Baroque, which ran away from Classical forms (of purely rationalistic, human invention) and was moved by flaming forms and visions of death, misery, heroism and glory. The transition from death to glory was represented by the blood-stained scenes of martyrdom. Never has a sculpture been made that so directly aimed to promote and evoke that feeling. It is absolutely sincere in its pathos, hence its great strength. Although it was a type of sculpture typical of all of Spain, Valladolid and Seville were its two great focuses, both cities that then felt a fervent emotion for the exultant external manifestations of religiosity.
The first of such sculptors that developed religious themes was Gregorio Fernández, a Galician, born according to some in Pontevedra, according to others in Sarria, around 1576 and died in 1636. He personalized the atmosphere of exalted religiosity of his time, reason why his sculpture was so popular and, at the same time, so personal. His first known work is the Dead Christ of El Pardo (1614), which is among the many iconographic images Fernández made and that later served as model for other artists for several years to come. The theme of the dead Christ, crucified or lying, was treated frequently by Fernández as he and his workshop produced 14 of these type of images, this one being the most famous. As these images were created in accordance with the ideology of the Counter-Reformation that required them to be realistic in order to impress and move the believer, Fernández here represented the dead Christ, his body stiffened in the rigor of death, the extreme expression of realism in sculpture. We see here Jesus Christ on a shroud, in a recumbent position, once crucified and transferred to the Holy Sepulcher. The image is designed to be viewed from the side. Christ’s bone structure is insistently marked, the eyes hollow, the cheeks sunken. His head leans to the right side, while his right leg appears higher than the left. The head and part of the thorax rest on a pillow, appearing inclined, which further contributes to this perception of laterality. The arms are extended on the bed and separated from the trunk, as if looking for a certain sense of symmetry, which can also be seen in the hair, as several locks are spread out on both sides of the pillow. Gregorio Fernández avoided any signs that would make rigor mortis visible, with the exception of a slight swelling of the body. The idea of death is thus transmitted by emphasizing the wounds and sores caused by the Stations of the Cross and the crucifixion. As we will see in other examples, in this type of images, the very realistic polychromy accentuates the physical aspect of the Passion (or mystical suffering, or martyrdom); streams of coagulated blood run down the cheeks and disappear into the beard. Being a devotional image, many of these sculptures were and are still paraded during Holy Week with other “pasos” which are elaborate religious floats adorned with sculptures depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ.
Some other wood- carved statues by Fernández and no less famous are, in addition to the magnificent relief of the Baptism of Christ (1624-1628), that of the group of the Pietà (1616-1619), and the Virgin of Sorrows of the True Cross (1624), today all kept in Valladolid. With a realist temperament, it is a pity that the stridency of the polychrome applied to the sculptures by Gregorio Fernández sometimes dulls the excellence of his gouge.
The relief with the Baptism of Christ illustrates a usual technique used by Gregorio Fernández in his reliefs: the main figures are in some cases almost free standing while the background is revealed only by relief and painting. Fernández’s figures were also characteristic because of the naturalism of their anatomical representation and in the elegance of the scenes.
As one of the masters of the Castilian school, Gregorio Fernández was an independent genius who owed nothing to Italian influence in his works. He excelled in the representation of the Christian drama (that is ‘the Passion’), which he emphasized with its physical aspects. His Pietà shows the Virgin Mary directing her gaze to the sky while grabbing with her left hand the lifeless body of Christ who lies by her feet; her right hand opened towards the sky in imploration. It was part of a “paso” which paraded in religious processions during Holly Week. This work is the best of five pieces Fernández dedicated to this topic. The main characteristics of Fernández’s artistic technique are present in this work, such as the deep angularities in the folds of fabrics which creates an outstanding chiaroscuro effect, and a marked naturalism in the bodies (see the bones and muscles outlined in Christ’s body). The sculpture was finished with a variety of materials apart from the polychrome wood: the defects of the carvings were covered with a mixture of plaster and fabric, the eyes of the figures are made of glass, the nails are made of small pieces of antlers, and the teeth are made of bone, all in order to provide the greatest degree of naturalism. In the majority of these type of images, the polychrome work was made by another artist, here by Marcelo Martínez.
The pinnacle of Sevillian religious sculpture in the 17th century is held by a great artist who was a friend of Velázquez, Juan Martínez Montañés, born in 1568 in Alcalá la Real (Jaén), but trained in Seville. He wasn’t merely a carver of religious images. Among his crucifixes is famous the Merciful Christ or Crucified Christ (ca. 1605) that Archdeacon Vázquez de Leca gave in 1614 to the Charterhouse of ‘Las Cuevas’, and which today is kept in the sacristy of the Chalices of the cathedral of Seville. The art of Martínez Montañés was inspired by nature and his production had more classicist and mannerist influences than strictly baroque ones. He was the creator of a serene and classic language that he transmitted to the entire Andalusian School, and that contrasted with the drama and passion seen in the art of the Valladolid School. The exceptional connection his art has still to this day with the faithful is clearly shown in the most impressive of his works, the Merciful Christ or Crucified Christ, of the cathedral of Seville. The figure, with his gaze, far from transmitting the pathos and pain so common in other Renaissance and Baroque sculptures of the same theme, seems to seek for complicity between the image of Christ and the viewer and not for tragedy or forgiveness. With the depiction of the body of crucified Christ, Martínez Montañés also showed a perfect knowledge of the human body, looking to accentuate the realism of the figure, representing the muscles, the veins, even the contortion typical of the crucifixion. This image of the Crucifixion is among one of the summits of these religious imagery.
Another important image by his hand is the Nazarene (1618-1619), carrying the cross on his back, known as the ‘Lord of the Passion’. But Montañés produced other types of wood carved statues, such as the High Altarpiece for the Monastery of San Isidoro del Campo (1609-1613), with an extraordinary nobility of style. Among his images of the Virgin stands out his Immaculate Conception (also known as “La Cieguecita”, 1629-1631) from the Sevillian cathedral.
Martínez Montañés created only one processional image: the Nazarene, a figure venerated in the Church of San Salvador in Seville. This sculpture must be placed as a key piece to understand the iconography of the Nazarene from its creation to the present day. Its arms and torso are rough-cut, while the head, forearms, hands, legs and feet are anatomically accurate. Shoulders and elbows have an articulation system that allows the hands to be moved, whether to embrace the cross or to tie them in the attitude of Captive Christ during religious ceremonies. Nazarene represents Christ walking towards Calvary, firmly resting his left foot on the ground, while his right foot barely touches it with his first toe, in a virtuous unstable balance typical of Mannerist statuary concerned with capturing elegant and unstable postures with difficult balances. His face, of Classical inspiration, has enormous expressive power and transformed into an image capable of transmitting human suffering. By sharpening the chiaroscuro, Martínez Montañés increased the drama of the sculpture as it is a work that was to be seen in the street, and not in an oratorio inside a church. The polychrome is presumably the work of Pedro Pacheco, a collaborator of Montañés and reinforces the great naturalism that the image conveys.
Considered as his masterpiece, Juan Martínez Montañés’ high altarpiece of St. Jerome for the monastery of San Isidoro del Campo in Santiponce, near Seville, was completed in 1613. Many of his students collaborated with him in the execution of this altarpiece in which he chose to represent different moments in the life of Christ. The altarpiece is flanked by the praying statues of the founders of the monastery. Although different in form and theme, all the altarpieces by Martínez Montañés, which are over a dozen, always show Italian influences, and share a perfect combination between the mystical and the real, including elements that show the artist great knowledge about structures, the human body, mysticism, as well as of painting and architecture.
The Immaculate Conception by Juan Martínez Montañés, affectionately called by the Sevillians as “La Cieguecita” (‘The Little Blind Girl’), is dated between 1629 and 1631 and kept in the chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Cathedral of Seville. This image has a timeless, almost Classical, beauty, her posture, slightly inclined, in a contraposto alludes to the forms adopted during the Italian “Cinquecento” in the Renaissance. This image of the Immaculate was carved of cedar (Cedrus sp.) wood and was polychromed by Francisco Pacheco and Baltasar Quintero. The image was sculpted according to the model established by Francisco Pacheco in his treatise on ‘The Art of Painting’ (1649) which said:
“…It is necessary to paint, then, ….., this Lady in the flower of her age, from 12 to 13 years old, a very beautiful girl, with pretty and serious eyes, a very perfect nose and mouth and rosy cheeks, her beautiful hair flowing, golden in color; in sum, as much as it can be possible to the human brush…“
Martínez Montañés’ Immaculate is thus a Virgin girl, with a rounded face, lowered gaze and half-open eyes (which gave her the nickname by which she is known), with long hair divided at her back and that falls over. She wears a long tunic, cinched with a belt, and a cloak on her shoulders that is gathered with her left arm, producing numerous folds. Her right leg is slightly bent and her hands remain joined. Her head is adorned with a crown of 12 stars that allude to the 12 tribes of Israel. At her feet, as a base are three faces of angels and a half moon with its points upward, all symbolism considered an anticipation of the Assumption of the Virgin iconography that the painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo adopted in his works during the second half of the 17th century. The coating of stars and the moon under her feet describe the vision of the new Church that is narrated in the Apocalypse of St. John.
A disciple of Martínez Montañés in sculpture, and in painting of Francisco Pacheco, teacher and father-in-law of Velázquez, was the versatile Granada-born Alonso Cano (1601-1667): architect, sculptor and painter. He was rigorously contemporary with Velázquez and Rembrandt.
Around the age of 40 he devoted himself to painting (especially in Madrid) and returned to his hometown in 1652. Perhaps the view of the art works in the Spanish capital helped matured and aired his talent, because the sculptures he carved after his stay in Madrid show a different breadth and independence from his previous works. For example, the graceful busts of Adam and Eve (ca. 1666) and the small and delightful Immaculate Conception (1655), all in the Granada cathedral. These are, in general, small images with which he created new types, with a harmonious balance between idealism and realism. As an exception in all the Spanish Baroque sculpture, he also sculpted in stone.
The busts of Adam and Eve by Alonso Cano (ca. 1666), polychromed in 1676 by his disciple Juan Vélez de Ulloa, were carved in wood of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) for the tondos of the Main Chapel of the Cathedral of Granada. In these busts of Adam and Eve, the genius of Alonso Cano is evidently revealed; they transmit the greatness of his modeling and his acute expressive intention. They therefore represent the material culmination of this artist’s production, one of the best figures of the Andalusian baroque. In these two busts of Adam and Eve, Cano offered us expressive and valuable testimonies of his artistic personality, and remind us of the busts created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Cano left the bust of Adam unfinished and it was completed after his death by Juan Vélez de Ulloa.
Alonso Cano’s Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (1655) served to establish the model for such iconography that has remained in the Spanish imagination ever since. This wooden sculpture has a harmonious and fluid quality which invites the viewer to appreciate it by walking around it. The composition is perfect as expected from an artist practiced in both painting and sculpture, the sculpted figure is thus complemented by the simple coloring scheme in blue and greenish tones, set off by lavish gilding. As typical of this iconography, Cano’s Immaculate Conception is an image of the Virgin Mary, still a child. Mary is supported on a base made up of three cherub heads that are integrated into a cloud and wears a cobalt blue cloak and a pastel green tunic. The cloak folds are wide and voluminous and the tunic and mantle hide her silhouette. The Virgin’s face conforms to the beauty type that Alonso Cano canonized in his images: oval face, large eyes, thin nose, small mouth, pale skin, rosy cheeks and long blonde hair parted in the middle.
Cano’s disciple was Pedro de Mena, a Granada native from Málaga, born in 1628, and the most outstanding personality of the school of Seville. Mena carved the choir stalls (1658-1662) of the Málaga cathedral, a work that had started 28 years earlier by sculptor Jaén Luis Ortiz de Varga. His sculptures for the second body of the choir stalls are considered perhaps the most original works of Spanish sculpture.
For the Church of St. Dominic in Málaga he also made the medallion in relief of the Virgin of Bethlehem (ca. 1666) destroyed in a fire in 1931. As an author of images, he showed himself to be very elegant, even in the way he used to express the feelings of his images. This Virgin shows the great care of the artist, as well as the balance of its delicate forms. She shows herself as a woman of severe and calm beauty, of a lordly dignity. This type of representations tried to reflect Mary’s humanity, showing her as a mother who holds her son in her lap with great tenderness, just like any other mother would do. Here we see the Virgin presenting the Child in her left arm while with her opposite hand she held the diaper with delicacy and softness. For its part, the image of the child summarized Mena’s consummate skill in managing children forms: he represented the child with charming wit and mischievous movement that made him lose his stability, turning towards the viewer while reflecting surprise and happiness. While the mother tried to change her son’s clothes with a severe but endearing gesture, the child played on her, losing his balance and clinging to her arm. The matte polychrome was probably done by painter Luis de Zayas.
Two of Pedro De Mena’s best statues are the famous Saint Francis (ca. 1663), where naturalism is taken almost to excess, and the potent Penitent Magdalene (1664, Museum of Valladolid).
The mysticism of Spanish Baroque sculpture hasn’t been more powerfully conveyed than in Pedro de Mena’s Penitent Magdalene. The Magdalene by Mena is a young woman, though emaciated by penitence, her large hair falling on her shoulders. The artist cleverly made us aware of her drama by focusing our sight on her open right hand resting on her chest, which makes us to follow her gaze towards the crucifix she holds in her left hand. Her body is covered with a woven palm mat up to her ankles, tied with a rope forming a large knot at her waist. Her bare feet are peeking out from under her tunic and her left foot is forward as if she was taking a step. It is a piece of great realism that transmits deep mystical-spiritual value showing the influence of the Castilian sculpture of Gregorio Fernández.
Pedro de Mena was also author of a good number of exquisite busts of the Virgin of the Sorrows (‘Dolorosa’). In his work, Mena wanted to convey extreme naturalism in the figures in a way that they would seem physically present before the viewer. He also was effective in imprinting them with a dignity and reserve that made them ideal works for contemplation.
Pedro Roldán was also another refined and inspired carver. Born in Seville, he developed his career in his hometown. His is the magnificent group representing the Entombment (1670-1673) in the main altarpiece of the church of San Jorge of the Hospital of the Charity (‘Hospital de la Caridad’) in Seville. He also produced several striking busts of the Mater Dolorosa. Due to their impressive realism, these busts of the grieving Virgin enjoyed great popularity in Spain as objects of devotion during the late 17th century, and consequently their demand increased and large numbers were produced, particularly in Andalusia and Granada. The theme of the Mater Dolorosa doesn’t represent a specific moment in the Virgin’s life, but rather a state of grief that transcends time. In the eyes of the viewer or the faithful, these images of the Virgin seemed to be physically present and immediately accessible for prayer and devotion.
One of Pedro Roldán’s daughters, Luisa (nicknamed La Roldana) was a carver and image maker with a style of graceful femininity, one of the major sculptors of the Andalusian Baroque. Both died towards the end of the 18th century; the father in 1699, the daughter four years later. Luisa is the earliest woman sculptor documented in Spain and has been recognized as one of the few women artists that maintained a studio outside the convents in the Spanish Golden Age. She was a prolific sculptor, much of her work included religious pieces for churches and she also produced small terracotta sculptures popular with the bourgeoisie of Madrid. The Entombment is one of them, a wonderful composition and exquisitely modelled group, made almost on an intimate scale which with no doubt would have inspired meditative devotion on the viewer.
The Artistic Adventure of Mankind 