Baroque Masters: Sculpture of Spain & Rembrandt’s Painting
Spanish Baroque Sculpture: Gregorio Fernández
In 17th-century Valladolid, an important school of sculpture developed, centered around Gregorio Fernández. His style established the defining characteristics of Spanish sculpture:
- Penetrating realism.
- Emphasis on dramatic and exalted expressionism in the service of religious feeling, utilizing various visual resources.
- Employment of an austere polychrome, often eschewing gold.
Religious themes in polychrome wood include altarpieces (retablos), processional figures, depictions of the suffering Christ and the Virgin, and images of saints.
Andalusian Baroque Sculpture: Juan Martínez Montañés
During the Baroque period, Andalusia became a thriving artistic center. Here, a more realistic sculptural style emerged compared to the Castilian school:
- Exhibits a lesser inclination for the tragic, adopting a more relaxed, serene, and restful style.
- Demonstrates greater virtuosity and attention to detail in carving, along with a more nuanced and brilliant polychrome.
Juan Martínez Montañés: Style and Works
Juan Martínez Montañés revolutionized sculpture in Seville with his distinctive style. His figures are realistic yet possess a calm and relaxed demeanor, endowed with beauty and precise proportions.
Among his notable works are beautiful portraits (e.g., Portrait of Santiponce), Immaculate Conceptions, and Crucifixes, such as the Christ of Clemency. He also created numerous saints.
Rembrandt: Master of Baroque Painting
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is one of the most brilliant figures of Baroque painting, developing a highly personal and innovative style that reveals a unique interpretation of natural reality.
- He did not seek mere mechanical or objective reproduction, but aimed to convey a subjective, symbolic, emotional, and expressive human reality. Physical reality or external appearance served as a mere instrument to convey feelings and emotions.
- His compositions are clear, simple, and consistent, eschewing theatrical excesses in favor of a serene and intimate, yet deeply expressive, language.
- Rembrandt is one of the greatest masters of color and light. His palette is very colorful, handling vibrant and warm tones alongside dark ones, achieving superb color harmonies. His brushwork became increasingly open, broad, and strong, softening and blurring forms, which enhanced the overall quality.
- Light is a determining factor in shaping reality. A master of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt assimilated Caravaggio’s dramatic use of light and shadow. His treatment of light became increasingly subjective and unreal, with pronounced contrasts of light and shadow used to suggest a transfigured or visionary reality—mysterious, dramatic, spiritual, and poetic.
Rembrandt explored all sorts of subjects, including religious themes, portraiture, landscape, still life, genre paintings, and mythology.
- He painted numerous portraits: individual, family, and character portraits, as well as group portraits, introducing important innovations such as depicting subjects in action. Notable works include The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, The Night Watch, and The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild.
- He was deeply interested in religious themes, addressing them through clear and simple compositions, a serene and intimate language, and maximizing expressive, subjective light to immerse viewers in a visionary, supernatural reality—a world of profound spirituality that moves and thrills.
- In his landscapes, natural reality is transformed into a dreamlike and subjective vision.