The Story of SevilleGallichan, Walter M. (Walter Matthew)
History
The Story of Seville
Gallichan, Walter M. (Walter Matthew)
Seville (Spain)
The student of architecture and painting will find ample examples of
varied styles of art in this great repository of sculpture, frescoes and
panel pictures. He will be able to trace the development of
architectural design from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, both
in the exterior and interior of the immense Cathedral. The art of the
_Mudéjar_, the Fleming, the Italian, the German and the Spaniard are
here represented in masonry, decoration, stained glass, and upon canvas.
Wandering designers and craftsmen of the Middle Ages looked upon Spain
as a land of plenty. They came from Flanders, Italy and Genoa, and found
favour with the wealthy Chapter of Seville. The artists employed to
adorn the Cathedral range from Juan Sanchez de Castro, 'the morning star
of Andalusia,' in 1454, to Francisco Goya, the last great painter of
Spain.
Many of the so-called Spanish school of artists were aliens who settled
in the country. Pedro Campaña was, for example, a native of Brussels.
For twenty years he studied in Italy, and his Purification of the Virgin
shows the Italian influence. Sturmio was probably a German named Sturm.
Doménico Theotocópuli, called '_El Greco_,' was a Greek. Mateo Perez de
Alesio was an Italian, who lived in Seville, and died at Rome in 1600.
Luis de Vargas, the painter of the Nativity picture in the Cathedral,
whose fresco work is to be seen elsewhere in the city, was a student of
the Italian method. Vargas was a man of profound piety. He was born in
Seville in 1502. After his death, scourges used for self-inflicted
penance were found in his room, and by his bed was a coffin in which
the ascetic painter used to lie in order to meditate seriously upon
life.
The religious devotion of Luis de Vargas is exhibited in the spirit of
his work. This reverential treatment of sacred subjects is
characteristic of all the Sevillian painters. In their art they
worshipped. Martinez Montañez, or Montañes, the sculptor, was a zealous
Catholic. In his coloured statues we perceive a melancholy reflection of
his sombre mind, a pathos expressing itself in realistic conceptions of
a suffering Christ and a sorrowful St. Francis Xavier. These tinted
statues appeal powerfully to the imagination of the Sevillian populace.
Many of the images were made for the solemn processions of Semana Santa.
Among the artists employed in adorning the Cathedral there was not one
more devoted to the Church than Pacheco. He was censor of art for the
Inquisition, and in his writings we find precise counsels upon the
fitting method of painting sacred pictures. To Pacheco the faith was of
far greater moment than art. He was a close friend of Montañez, whose
statues he sometimes coloured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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