Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie VII, Historia del Arte

Sacred Relics within the Iberian Empires: Art, Identity and Circulation

2024-10-14T16:13:21+00:00

Dossier introduction

The Persistence of a Typology: Reliquary Busts as Part of a Legitimization Strategy in Aragonese Cathedrals in the Middle and Modern Ages

2024-02-08T08:05:32+00:00

The popularity of anthropomorphic reliquaries in Aragon has been noted by historiography, linking their origin to the donation of the busts of Saint Valerius, Saint Vincent and Saint Lawrence to the cathedral of Saragossa by Pope Benedict XIII. Thanks to their role in festivities, the three artworks originated an image of power that was widely reproduced throughout the Modern Age. The renewed value of the holy remains encouraged by the Council of Trent led dioceses sees and parishes to adopt this model, that also consisted of a ceremonial in which the liturgical space took on a fundamental importance where to deploy the arguments that legitimized local ecclesiastical institutions.

Treasures of Heaven: The Reliquary of Orihuela Cathedral

2024-07-11T19:52:16+00:00

This article provides an overview of the significance of the Orihuela Cathedral Reliquary, both from an artistic perspective and in terms of its importance as a belief’s testimony surrounding sacred relics during the Medieval and Modern periods in the Catholic realm, particularly within the context of the Church of Orihuela. The preserved reliquaries reveal the initial setup of a devotional and ceremonial apparatus within the Cathedral as a new episcopal seat during the Renaissance. They encompass the chosen devotions, some aimed at enhancing the prestige of the temple, while others linked to the Aragonese identity of Orihuela. The relics on display, such as splinters from the Cross, those of Saint Peter, the skull of Pope Saint Anterus, or of the early church’s first martyr, Saint Stephen, serve as testaments to the role played by the new cathedral as a spiritual center of the diocese established in 1564. They also signify its role in the Counter-Reformation context. All of these relics were encased in highly valuable metalwork pieces, primarily reliquary busts, showcasing the exceptional craftsmanship achieved by silversmiths and goldsmiths in the Orihuela region, notably within the workshops of Miguel de Vera and Hercules Gargano.

The Gaze on the Veneration of Relics. The Case of the Virgen del Lledó and other Valencian Relic Images in Modern Age

2024-07-19T15:45:06+00:00

Sometimes, tactile access has been allowed to the sacred remains, but most reliquaries have orchestrated, only, a dynamic of occultation and ostentation of relics. The importance of the gaze has also determined the fate of some images that can be considered and treated as relics themselves, because of their sacred character. However, the particularity of these relic-images led to a renewed presentation inside larger reliquary-images in modern and contemporary times. This is the case of the Virgen del Lledó of Castellón, but also of the Virgen de Orito de Monforte del Cid (Alicante). The study of the image resulting from the conjunction of relic and reliquary in relation to its devotional context, based on the review of documents such as inventories or sermons, as well as images of affective substitution, is the objective of this work.

The Processions of the Relics of the Society of Jesus in Santafé And Tunja, Nuevo Reino de Granada (1612-1613)

2024-04-15T08:14:07+00:00

This article addresses the role of the Society of Jesus in the procession for the arrival of the relics of Paleo-Christian martyrs and blessed jesuits in two Andean cities of the Nuevo Reino de Granada, Santafé and Tunja, according with the established for the Council of Trent. The arrival of this relics promotes the foundation of Jesuit schools in both cities, that privilege the thaumaturgic use of relics and its principal role in the extirpation of idolatry. The procession of relics in Santafé and Tunja, brought by the Jesuits from the Roman catacombs in the second decade of the 17th century, has compare in this article. This was a baroque feast that sacralizing the space of the cities and honor the temples and schools of the Society of Jesus.

The Tepehuan Martyrs of New Spain. Circulation of Relics and Images in the Construction of a Failed Sanctity, 1616-1668

2024-04-18T13:45:46+00:00

The objective of this research is to present and reconstruct the devotion and promotion of holiness that the Jesuit martyrs of the Tepehuanes missions had at the dawn of the 17th century in New Spain, from the writing of information, the creation of drawings and paintings, and especially for the veneration of their relics and the miracles achieved by those who possessed them. Through the analysis of testimonies and images, their invention and devotion are demonstrated not only as examples of the triumph of missionary actions in the New World, but also as the possibility of being declared martyrs, clear proof of the spiritual maturity of the lands conquered. starting from a new martyrdom archetype. The marginal environment of New Spain – the unstable frontiers of mission and advancement – enjoyed great importance in the spiritual dynamics of its time, due to the eagerness of its Christian inhabitants to participate in the creation of new devotions and objects of worship that replicated the European experience through relics.
Keywords

Following in the Apostle’s Footprints in the Andes: Traces as Relics and Vestiges of Historic Presence

2024-05-13T07:19:09+00:00

The footprints left by Jesus Christ and some saints, whether on earth or on stones, are indices of historical presence, and are generally associated with those figures who did not leave bodily remains. Unlike bodily fragments, footprints and other traces, as well as the surface on which they are inscribed, were in close proximity with sacred matter and because of this they are considered contact relics. In the seventeenth century, colonial accounts that argue about the evangelization of Spanish America prior to the conquest highlight the importance of footprints and other traces allegedly left by Saint Thomas or one of his disciples as evidence of their presence and apostolic work in the region. Focusing on Antonio de la Calancha’s Crónica Moralizada (1638), this article discusses such narratives as part of an effort to build a Christian topography on the Andean landscape. I argue that the evocative language employed by the author evidences his interest in heightening the sacred aura of the stones where the saint had left traces of his presence. By doing so, Calancha transforms them into objects of contemplation while reaffirming their status as relics. Focusing on the materiality of the stones, and directing the reader’s attention to detail, Calancha replicates the spiritual experience of pilgrims, arresting their pace to piously examine and touch the sacred places, as well as the reverence that devotees offered to reliquaries.

Maps for Inner Pilgrimage. 'Klosterarbeiten' and Relics in the Real Monasterio de Santa Clara in Salamanca

2024-03-18T11:50:24+00:00

After the Cisnerian Reform, the wealthy Poor Clares of Salamanca became an important monastery within the networks of female spirituality on the Iberian Meseta. Among their modest collection of relics, there are some conventual manufactures made of paper, spiritual nuclei that were the origin of visualisation and prayer practices as products created for union with God. These reliquaries are prayers turned into images, in which the meanings attached to the process of creation and to the spaces in which they are venerated distinguish them from other common sacred vestiges. Here it is proposed a study that transcends the apparent contradictions present in these small spaces of contemplation and aims to reposition them in their own contexts of interior pilgrimage and religiousness enclosed in movement, with medieval roots and Carmelite echoes.

A Mexican Silver Urn for the Mortal Remains of San Juan de Dios in Granada

2024-04-02T09:00:42+00:00

The mortal remains of San Juan de Dios rest in a silver urn that was carved in 1767 by the Jaén goldsmith Miguel de Guzmán. This was made with the silver of a previous one sent from Mexico in 1730, which the general of the order, Fray Alonso de Jesús y Ortega, never liked. In this work we provide unpublished news about the sending of this urn and other gifts of carved silver and jewelry sent to the Basilica of San Juan de Dios in Granada in the 18th century by the San Juanist fathers of the hospitals of the New World.

The Reliquary of the Counts of Altamira in the Palace of Almazán (1740): New Notes from an Inherited Space

2024-04-23T18:03:20+00:00

This article touches upon the relics that Counts of Altamira had in the Almazan’s palace (Soria). Created in 16th, this space represented the values of Counter-Reformation. Despite several vicissitudes, this collection remained in the same palace until the 19th. Through a document dated in 1740, we can discover the pieces that were preserved in the 18th. Likewise, this study will allow to show the evolution of this interesting collection.

'Sancti Christi Martyris Justini' in Puebla de los Ángeles. The Donation and Discovery of a Catacomb Martyr from Rome to New Spain

2024-05-22T09:58:19+00:00

This article explores the case of Saint Justin Martyr, whose relics were recently discovered in the convent church of St. Jerome in Puebla de los Ángeles, Mexico. This recovery represents an invaluable testimony of the presence of catacomb relics or corpisanti in Puebla during the eighteenth century. Analysis of the authentica and documentary source materials from the Historical Archive of the Vicariate of Rome allows to reconstruct the context of the concession under the conditions of the connections between Rome and New Spain during the eighteenth century, through the donations of Giovanni Antonio Guadagni (1674–1759), Cardinal-Vicar of Rome under the government of Pope Clement XII (1730–1740) and Pope Benedict XIV (1740– 1758).

The 'Artealisation' of the Forest of Fontainebleau and the Obstacles to Cultural Consummation

2023-08-22T11:33:27+00:00

The forest of Fontainebleau is not just a green space; it is a cultural meeting place rooted in tradition. The idea that exists in the collective imagination comes largely from the work of the artists who settled there in the 19th century. A couple of questions are posed here through a critical review of the most relevant works of recent decades — among others, those of the art historian V., the historian Ch. Georgel and the sociologist B. Kalaora — dedicated to this environment from an artistic perspective. The first one covers the main milestones of its artealisation and shows how the artists’ gaze has determined the perception of this space as a green museum, which has led to the adoption of protective measures. The second is a final reflection on whether the excessive codification of a landscape leads to the devaluation of the aesthetic experience in favour of mere cultural consummation.

Art as Materialization of Ideology and Culture in the Beginning of Pharaonic Egypt

2023-09-17T17:41:14+00:00

The object of study is the materialization of an ideology and culture that uses art as a device to spread a new political, administrative, religious and social reality with the emergence of the State in Egypt. This is an art whose scenes should not be interpreted historically or merely formally, but culturally, pursuing the bases of a cultural memory that sank its sources in predynastic times, instituting narratives and visual messages that endured more than three thousand years. Protodynastic art reflects experiences and feelings, a new system of cultural and social models to which writing would join.

The The Actions of the Duke of Riánsares in the World of the Arts

2023-06-11T23:23:20+00:00

The political and social transformation that occurred in the 19th century changed tastes and customs. New themes and styles appeared in art, fueled by the demand of the new social elites. The Muñoz family serves as an example of the social and cultural evolution of the bourgeoisie of the time. Fernando Muñoz not only quickly learned to know art and to incorporate paintings into his home in accordance with the fashion of the time, but he also assimilated the bourgeois mentality in economic terms, that is, in conceiving art also as a business, selling and buying paintings as valuable commodities. After the rupture of the traditional channels of patronage and the art market, Muñoz was able to successfully overcome this problem and form an extremely important pictorial collection at the same time that he managed to make a name for himself among artists, becoming a true patron that guaranteed success. economic and artistic in the new society.

‘Lights and Democratic Skylights’. Critical Reflections from Aesthetics, Literature, and Politics on the Exhibition The Democratic Skylight: Politics of Life and Death in the Spanish State (1868-1976)

2023-11-16T09:20:49+00:00

This article takes a multidisciplinary approach to a cultural critique of the exhibition The Democratic Skylight: Politics of life and death in the Spanish State (1868-1976). While it represents a milestone in recognizing the victims of political violence, it presents a polarized framework with difficult solutions. To problematize the proposal, but also to complement it from an emancipatory and democratizing perspective, the article first considers, from Aesthetics, the mediation of objects that bear witness to political violence. Then, through a literary analysis, it explores the missed opportunities presented by Antonio Buero Vallejo's play El Tragaluz (1967) –from which the exhibition draws a «poetics of memory»– for reflecting on victims and perpetrators. Lastly, from an ethical-political perspective, it examines the contributions of Juan Gutiérrez and the association «Hebras de Paz Viva» to the conflicts of memory and peace.

Peripheral Elites in the Castilian Late Gothic: Building, Promoters and Architects in San Cosme and San Damián de Covarrubias

2023-11-16T09:50:45+00:00

The study of the San Cosme and San Damián de Covarrubias church demonstrates the difficulty that some Castilian religious institutions had to renovate their buildings during the Late Gothic period. Based on the preserved written sources and the architectural analysis of the church, this paper examines the actions of promoters, their interests, the labor of the stonemasons in charge of the works, the financing problems and, ultimately, the complex process of construction of the church in the 15th century. A detailed knowledge of these circumstances allows us to establish criteria for emulation in relation to other works of the period and common behaviors with other contemporary artistic centers to propose, as a final objective, a reflection on the concept of «peripheral elite» applied to all facets of artistic creation of the time: buildings, promoters and stonemasons.

The Tower of San Pedro in Ocaña (1796-1826). Master Builders and Architects of the Academy Facing Restoration Practice

2023-09-29T10:29:28+00:00

The tower of San Pedro in Ocaña (Toledo) was the subject of an extensive series of projects involving the architects Ignacio Haan, Miguel Antonio de Marichalar, Juan Antonio Cuervo, and Leonardo Clemente. With the appointment of these Fellows of the Academy to oversee the works of the Archdiocese of Toledo, the master builders who had traditionally been responsible for the conservation of the temples were relegated to a subordinate role. Their profound mastery of construction techniques, which underpinned a conservative approach focused on preserving the organic balance of the structures, would still prove decisive in the complex solution finally adopted for the San Pedro tower, similar to the one implemented for the Salamanca Cathedral tower after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The plans and descriptions made during these interventions around the Peninsular War have allowed us to understand the complete appearance of the tower, which was demolished along with the rest of the church in 1906. In the engraving of the Battle of Ocaña by Adolphe Roehn and in the watercolours of Louis Harmois, intended to commemorate the French victory, the relevance of the bell tower as an urban landmark is clear. This would had immediate continuity in its selection as a stationing point in the first campaign for the creation of the geological map of Spain in 1850.

Conditions of Change in Architecture. Origin or Strategy through Two Texts by Rafael Moneo and Lacaton & Vassal

2023-09-22T09:53:44+00:00

The article confronts a couple of texts –The Life of the Buildings by Rafael Moneo and Structural Freedom, a Precondition for the Miracle by Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal– to propose a reflection on the contemporary conditions that allow architecture to change. Moneo’s text proposes the identification of some essential formal features and the recognition of the autonomy that the architectural project acquires once it is built, as the origin and guarantee of a certain future change. Change is part of an already written destiny and not so much a process. In the text by the French architects, however, it is the supporting structure from the process and the concept of superimposition, that result in an architecture capable of assuming change as the episode of an open destiny. If the former appeals to essential timeless values, the latter identify temporality as a permanent state of architecture and of our everyday life. The article discusses these two ways of approaching change as an inevitable condition of architecture, does not deny their validity but explains their background with some other texts.

«Equal to Today’s Great Masters»: Carmen Suárez Guerra in the Spanish Art Scene of the Twenties

2023-12-04T10:04:56+00:00

Carmen Suárez Guerra (1879-1949) is a case of singular interest in the Spanish artistic scene at the beginning of the 20th century. She achieved success in a markedly masculinized artistic discipline, fire enamel on metals, and she managed to overcome the main obstacles that limited the professional recognition of women artists. In addition of important awards –Gold Medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris (1925); second woman awarded First Medal at the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes (1922)–she achieved a much more difficult triumph: she got art critics to renounce traditional sexist discourses and consider her talent «equal to today’s great masters». This work examines, based on unpublished documentary sources, Carmen Suárez’s career, and the influence she exerted on critics and the press in favor of the eradication of sexist stereotypes and in favor of the recognition of women artists in the artistic system.

Self-Referentiality in the Work of María Dolores Casanova (1914-2007): An Analysis of the Biographical-Artistic Dialogue in her Painting

2023-11-06T12:28:12+00:00

María Dolores Casanova Teruel was a relevant painter in the context of Spanish contemporary art, from the late 60s until approximately 1988. However, her transcendence has been diluted over time. Given the narrative and self-referential nature of her production, this article aims to reconstruct her life trajectory, while she was active in the public space. To do this, an analysis of the biographical-artistic dialogue in her work is carried out, in which her published memoirs, the backbone of her discourse, are confronted with her pictorial creations. The study is also based on both interviews with Casanova published in the press and other unpublished interviews with her family and friends, as well as archival material. The investigation will prove an almost exact correspondence between the different episodes and interests of her life, as recorded in her autobiography, and her artistic legacy. However, at the same time, the examination of those materials will confirm that, where the artist’s text «lies», shows indifference, or hides certain key moments of her existence, her paintings reveal her most intimate «self», and it can only be found in her art and not in her chronicle.

Horizon and Horizontality in Pictorial Space. A Comparison between the Landscape Painting of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Hasegawa Tōhaku

2024-01-16T12:02:55+00:00

In its origins, landscape painting in Europe and East Asia created different natural settings, reflecting a cultural understanding of their societies’ relationship with the natural environment. In this context, the aim of this article will be to elucidate the sense of space in these two settings through a comparative study of the depiction of nature in Hasegawa Tōhaku’s the Pine Tree screen (ca. 1595) and Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow (1565). To do so, we will compare both pictorial spaces, their distinctive characteristics and their two systems of representation: the European perspective and the far-eastern moving focus. Thus, taking into account Panofsky’s description of perspective as the «symbolic form of the West», we will assess whether this definition can be extrapolated to the moving focus as the «symbolic form of the East». From these premises, we will examine whether the development of both pictorial spaces can respond to this hypothesis.

«Lavors de Scarpello» of the Choir and the Apse of the Church of Nostra Dona de Montserrat in Rome (1518-1522)

2023-11-29T12:04:53+00:00

The present study explains the choir and apse of the church of the brotherhood of Nostra Dona de Montserrat in Rome (1518-1522), designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Based on the analysis of the projects of Antonio Cordini and the current plant, documentary evidence extracted from the Llibre de la fàbrica and the observation of the material remains, it updates and extends the knowledge about the plant and the artworks carried out in travertine by the masters scalpellini Bindo and Melchiore. It reconstructs its location, its chronology, its price and its characteristics. It also provides some possible identifications and reflects on the importance given by this architect to the architectural order and the numerical relationships.

The Valencian Favourites of the Favourite. Art and Social Legitimation in the Duke of Lerma’s Day (1599-1625)

2023-11-16T12:15:32+00:00

This paper reflects on the noble way of life of those who, protected by the Duke of Lerma, prospered in the shadow of the favourite, as exemplified by the vice-chancellor Andrés Roig (1564-1622), whose biographical details, some of them unpublished, are presented as a starting point for this reflection. The discourse is structured in three acts, each focusing on a specific aspect of social life: to prosper, to live, and to die, focusing on the importance of the artistic object in order to stand out socially. In a society where appearance is everything, whether in life or death, the positions and titles achieved necessitate a complementary «ostentation, pomp and magnificence», in Roig’s own words. The Valencian case offers very representative and little studied examples of the practice of favouritism, particularly given that the Duke of Lerma possessed all his non-Castilian patrimonial estates and notable interests there, which he sought to consolidate.

Book review: Silva Santa Cruz, Noelia; García García, Francisco de Asís; Rodríguez Peinado, Laura; y Romero Medina, Raúl (eds.), (In)materialidad en el arte medieval

2024-10-28T10:59:31+00:00

Book review: Silva Santa Cruz, Noelia; García García, Francisco de Asís; Rodríguez Peinado, Laura; y Romero Medina, Raúl (eds.), (In)materialidad en el arte medieval, Gijón, Trea, Piedras Angulares, 2023. ISBN: 978–84-19525–680. 352 págs.

Book review: Díez Jorge, María Elena (dir.), Sentir la casa. Emociones y cultura material en los siglos XV y XVI

2024-02-27T18:46:25+00:00

Book review: Díez Jorge, María Elena (dir.), Sentir la casa. Emociones y cultura material en los siglos XV y XVI. Gijón, Ediciones Trea, 2022. ISBN 978-84-19525-47-5. 495 págs.

Book review: Martínez Jiménez, Nuria, Pintura mural del Renacimiento en la Alhambra

2023-04-11T09:00:23+00:00

Book review: Martínez Jiménez, Nuria, Pintura mural del Renacimiento en la Alhambra. Granada, Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, Consejería de Cultura y Patrimonio Histórico, Junta de Andalucía, 2021. ISBN 978-84-17518-15-8. 277 pp.

Book review: García-Luengo Manchado, J., Gregorio Prieto. Retrato de un siglo

2024-04-15T15:08:23+00:00

Book review: García-Luengo Manchado, Javier, Gregorio Prieto. Retrato de un siglo. Madrid, Fundación Gregorio Prieto, 2022. ISBN: 978-84-941693-8-0.

Book review: Sánchez García, Jesús Ángel; Vázquez Castro, Julio y Vigo Trasancos, Alfredo (eds.): Arquitecturas añoradas. Memoria gráfica del patrimonio destruido en Galicia en el siglo XX

2024-09-06T08:23:53+00:00

Book review: Sánchez García, Jesús Ángel; Vázquez Castro, Julio y Vigo Trasancos, Alfredo (eds.): Arquitecturas añoradas. Memoria gráfica del patrimonio destruido en Galicia en el siglo XX. Gijón, Trea, 2023. ISBN: 978–84-19525–46‑8. 944 pp.