SPAIN AND PORTUGAL SCULPTURE

While the last traces of the international Gothic style faded away, the picture of Iberian sculpture at the close of the Middle Ages was coloured by new values dominated by northern influences.
The manner of the foreign sculptors from the north, however, changed on their contact with Spanish surroundings and their style was transposed by the indigenous masters into a specifically Spanish key. The boom in production was concentrated mainly in the Castilian regions, as well as Catalonia, Andalusia and Portugal, after the middle of the fifteenth century. Often the artists’ names leave no doubt as to their northern origin.
In Toledo, Hannequin de Bruselas, maestro mayor of the cathedral, put up the door of the south transept, the Puerta de los Leones (1462—1465), whose sculptured decoration was the work of Juan Alemn and his collaborators, among whom was Egas Cueman, Hannequin’s brother. From the start northern influences prevailed in this portal. The stiff, impassive, monumental statues of the splays and the figures in relief of the Tree ofJesse on the inner tym— panum are clearly defined by a linear rhythm emphasized by the prominent verticals or diagonals of the tubular folds between the smooth areas. This tense and graphic style, not without delicacy in the treatment of  feminine and juvenile faces, hands and details of clothing, presents undeniable resemblances with the sculpture of the Lower Rhine, linked, as we know, with Netherlandish art.
These masters of Toledo, probably schooled in the north before settling in Spain, represent a stylistic phase
parallel to that of their contemporaries from Brussels, Utrecht or Kalkar, such as Master Arnt, in the second half of the fifteenth century. Here as there, the forms and imagery show the dominance of the great Flemish painters, known very early in Spain, as witnessed by the works of Egas Cueman for the abbey of Guadalupe (CIceres), which interpret some typical designs of Rogier van der Weyden. But from the prolific production of Toledo emerged a peculiar tonality attributable to the local milieu. The typically Iberian predilection for ornamental richness showed itself everywhere inside religious buildings: in the teeming flamboyant decor of the choir screen in Toledo Cathedral, the capilla mayor carved from 1483 on under the direction of Martin Sanchez Bonifacso and Juan Guas; in the vast altarpiece in polychromc wood on the high altar (1498—I 504) which sets out the sculptured scenes in superimposed compartments in the Netherlandish manner and ws the joint work of sculptors of such diverse origin as Copin de Holanda, Sebastian de Almonacid and Fclipe Bigamy (i.e. from Burgundy); or yet again in the Toledo church of San Juan de los Reyes, originally destined to house the tombs of the Cathohc Kings, where an astonishing heraldic decor punctuated by figure carvings, conceived by Juan Guas, covers the walls (5478-1495).
In funerary art the Toledo sculptors or their Castihan emulators also affirmed their specific manner, precise and vigorous, with an acuteness verging at times on dryness, as shown by many examples, such as the tombs by Sebastian de Almonacid of the constable Alvaro dc Luna (died 1489) and his wife (cathedral of Toledo); or that, justly famous, of the knight at arms Martin Vsquez de Arce (died 1486) (cathedral of Sighenza), which, unusually, presents the deceased leaning on his elbows and reading, thereby transforming the traditional type of recumbent figure in a humanist mode.
At Seville as well, the foreign masters who arc mentioned after the middle of the fifteenth century (like Lorenzo Mercadante dc Bretafia, Pieter Dancart, who is called airman, Master Marco Flamenco) introduced rigid, energetically outlined forms, physical types and compositional schemes at once stemming from the Netherlands or Lower Rhine and displaying various autonomous accents according to personality. The original use of clay for modelling statues or reliefs distingnishes several series of Sevdlian works. Those ofMercadante on the portals of the Nativity and the Baptism (1466-1467) of the cathedral embellish their somewhat stiff robustness with an emphasis on expression in the rounded and smiling feminine faces. His successor in practising this technique, Pedro Milln (mentioned from 1487 to 1507) sofrened still further the physiognomies of his polychrome terracotta figures, several of which bear his signature, such as the Christ of Sorrows from El Garrobo (Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville).
The enormous altarpiece in polychsFome wood on the high altar of Seville Cathedral, begun from a design by Pieter Dancart around 148 1-5482, and continued by various teams, notably from 5497 to i5cs by Master Marco, then by Pedro Milln mentioned in e5n6-15n7, and from in8 to 1525 byJorge Fernndez and his brother the painter Alexo, had its central part completed only in January 1526. This shows how difficult it is to estimate the share of each in this collective work. Some figures, like those of the Birth of the Virgin, rather suggest the art of Pedro Milln by their regular oval faces and quiet drapet— aes. Others, like the figures of the Raising of Lazarus, have more vivacity, more individuahzed features, and belong to a later stage, perhaps that of Master Marco and Jorge and Alexo Fernndez, which seems to echo the style of the Kalkar workshops in the entourage of Master Arnt.
At Burgos flourished the singular genius of Gil de Silo, the great name of late Gothic Spanish sculpture. Was he a northern master who had emigrated to Spain? A Spaniard trained in the north? The question remains unresolved hecanse of the absence of explicit documents and the perfect fashion his art reveals of northern characteristics and Iberian traditions. For the charterhouse of Miraflores, Gil de Silo created three masterworks: from 1489 to 1493 the alabaster tombs of the parents and brother of Queen Isabella the Catholic Kin gJohn II, Isabella of Portugal and the Infante Alfonso—and from 1496 to 1499 the monumental alrarpiece in polychrome wood. Other works, like the Tree of Jesse altarpiece sn the St Anne chapel of Burgos Cathedral (donated by Luis de Acuha, bishop from 1456 to 1495), were made sn his workshop as well as the tomb of the queen’s page, Juan de Badilla (died ii), for the monastery of Fresdeval (Museo Provincial, Burgos).