In the Italian Manner. Spain and the Mediterranean Gothic, 1320-1420
Jaume Serra, Virgen de Tobed con los donantes Enrique II de Castilla, su mujer, Juana Manuel, y dos de sus hijos, Juan y Juana? (detail), 1359-62, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
This Prado’s new exhibition reassesses how, long before the emergence of the Renaissance, Italy set the pace for a profound transformation in which the Hispanic kingdoms were one of the principal spaces of reception. The exhibition features more than one hundred works in a range of techniques (painting, sculpture, goldsmithing, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, embroidery, silk textiles, and more), loaned from 31 Spanish and 25 international institutions. These works allow for an analysis of how Italian Trecento models were assimilated and reformulated by Spanish artists, resulting in a hybrid, sophisticated and highly original visual language.
The works on display include examples by both leading Italian masters, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Gherardo Starnina, Lupo di Francesco, Barnaba da Modena, Andrea di Petruccio and Geri Lapi, and prominent Hispanic figures, such as Ferrer and Arnau Bassa, the Serra brothers, Pedro de Córdoba and Miquel Alcañiz.
Far from presenting a one-sided narrative, the exhibition underscores the complexity of these artistic exchanges and includes a revealing final twist: the impact of Spanish art on Italy. The result is a two-way dialogue that challenges the traditional boundaries between centres and peripheries of late medieval European art.
Long before the Renaissance swept across Europe, Italy was the birthplace of an artistic revolution spearheaded by masters such as Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers, a revolution destined to resonate across the continent. It is not by coincidence that the Hispanic kingdoms were among the first Western regions to embrace the artistic manifestations of the Italian Trecento, where they astonished viewers due to their innovative aesthetic and technical refinement. In addition to the highly effective Mediterranean communication networks (commercial, diplomatic, political, etc.,) that facilitated the arrival of artists and works, Spanish masters paid particular attention to the innovations emanating from the Italian peninsula. This was a fascinating creative sensibility.
Among the principal arguments demonstrated in this exhibition is the fact that in the hands of Hispanic masters, the Trecento style was a true lingura franca, open to a wide range of versions and adaptations. It thus served as a starting point for refined, hybrid works that transcend conventional artistic categories. In the creations of Ferrer and Arnau Bassa, for example, Italian formulas merged with elements of French and Neo-Byzantine origin, resulting in a synthesis unparalleled in the Italian world. Images not only travelled: they were translated and acclimatised, generating diffuse and hybrid identities arising from the fertile conjunction of different aesthetic approaches.
The Spanish masters’ creativity is evident in areas other than purely formal ones. These include iconography, with the appearance of interesting variations on themes and compositions of Italian origin, from Roman Marian icons to the extensive imagery generated by the new Franciscan saints. In other cases, the change is reflected in the meanings acquired when imported works were introduced into different visual and mental contexts. In this sense, Italian models and prototypes took on a new life and a second nature through their transfer to the Iberian Peninsula.
The originality of the Hispanic masters is evident in their use of distinctive formats for panel painting, such as the monumental altarpiece, the preferred “stage machinery” for presiding over places of worship. Altarpieces were also the favoured medium for experimenting with sophisticated, mixed-method painting techniques. As in Italy, the application of gold was not just decoration but rather an aesthetic strategy that allowed for the emulation of the textures and sumptuousness of costly fabrics, brocades and jewels. This was continued further, transforming the surfaces of large altarpieces into active backgrounds that absorb and modulate the light according to its intensity and the viewpoint. In the hands of the Hispanic Trecento painters, the altarpiece became an optical and symbolic experience.
The exhibition concludes with an unexpected twist that illustrates the extent to which the vagaries of artistic exchange defy any preconceptions or categories established by traditional art-historical approaches. While the exhibition’s principal focus is the influence of Trecento Italian models on the artistic landscape of the Hispanic kingdoms, the final section is devpted to analysing the reverse. The key figure here is Gherardo Starnina, a Tuscan master who, following a period spent in the Crowns of Castile and Aragon, agitated the artistic milieu of early 15th-century Florence with the innovative late Gothic style he had adopted during his time in Valencia. The example of Starnina reveals that the permeability of artistic contexts, observed up to this point in the exhibition from the Hispanic perspective, also affected the Italian world. This offers further proof that artistic circulation in the western Mediterranean generated realities rich in distinctive characteristics and alternatives: “In the Italian manner” becomes “In the Spanish manner”.
The exhibition includes over one hundred works in a range of techniques (painting, sculpture, goldsmithing, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, embroidery, silk textiles, etc.), loaned from 31 Spanish and 25 international institutions. Among them are examples by renowned Italian masters such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Gherardo Starnina, Lupo di Francesco, Barnaba da Modena, Andrea di Petruccio and Geri Lapi, as well as prominent Spanish artists such as Ferrer and Arnau Bassa, the Serra brothers, Pedro de Córdoba and Miquel Alcañiz.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book by its curator, Joan Molina Figueras, which presents a detailed study and analysis of the themes addressed and the works on display. Many of them will also be the subject of critical analysis at an international conference to be held at the Museo del Prado from 9 to 11 September.
Restoration
The Museo del Prado has restored thirteen of the works included in the exhibition In the Italian Manner. Spain and the Mediterranean Gothic (1320-1420). Three are paintings in Museum’s own collection and the remainder are in other collections. It should be noted that some of them are ensembles comprising several paintings, such as the Altarpiece of Saint Mark and Saint Anianus from Manresa cathedral and the Polyptych of the Virgin lactans from Córdoba cathedral. Also included among these works are two sculptures from the Sanctuary of Lluc.
Over time, many of these paintings suffered from neglect and lack of conservation and in some cases were even modified to adapt their appearance to changing aesthetic tastes. Preparing the present exhibition has involved significant research and restoration, reinstating the transparency of the colours and the gilding, which were obscured and dulled by previous interventions. The restoration undertaken at the Museum by specialists in sculpture, painting, wood supports and frames has largely succeeded in recovering the original luminosity and technical perfection of the works.