So, if you're looking for Baroque drama, Spain is the place to go. Remember what Spain is up to during the 1500s. The Spanish Empire is so vast that it can be compared to the scale of the ancient Roman Empire.
It verges on a worldwide government. By the 17th century, Spain's pretension to universal and worldwide dominance created a cultural climate ripe for the Baroque. So, let's look at what happens here in politics.
Philip III abdicates the throne and becomes a religious recluse, and now it's time for his brother Charles to take over. While outwardly, powerful Spanish monarchy was unchanging, even in light of their crumbling class system, other things are happening. They banished the Moriscos. Moriscos in... Spanish, in this kind of Spanish, refers to descendants of the Moors.
Remember that Spain had hundreds of thousands of African Islamic Moors from the continent living in Spain, and they were the middle class. Many of them had long since converted to Catholicism, and many of them remained Muslim. However, during the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish government banishes 300,000 of its most productive citizens.
They were no longer part of the working economy. And as you know it's the middle class that drives the economy. The Spanish court spent inordinate amounts of money maintaining their lifestyle.
Now this is good for Baroque art but not so much for the budget of the Spanish government. This is the main reason that the Spanish monarchy is funding trips, adventurous voyages by the conquistadors such as Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and Magellan. They want to conquer land for the King of Spain and they want to exploit the resources that they find there. So, Spanish Baroque art is very Catholic, very counter-reformation, highly religious, and much of the look of their work is inspired by El Greco. So let's take a look at an early Spanish Baroque artist, José de Rivera, and there is his image on the left.
So he deals generally with religious subject matter, and you can... always spot a Spanish Baroque painting because the religious iconography is just so over the top. Here we see Saint Philip about to be martyred on this cross and you see this awkward body position. Does that remind you of the Pontormo image we saw back during the Mannerist period?
So the Spanish painters are going to learn the lessons of Caravaggio well. You see lots of chiaroscuro here. In the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, look at Bartholomew's gaze as he looks up towards the heavens.
Bartholomew was martyred by being flailed. That means being skinned alive. And this guy right here, he is the executioner. Do you see he's got the knife and the sharpener in his hand?
Look at his expression. He's like, what's this guy? so relaxed about. I'm about to kill him in this terrible way. But Bartholomew looking up towards the heavens as if to say, okay, God, if this is what you've got in mind for me, this is what's going to happen.
Zuberon is another well-known Spanish Baroque artist. Here he portrays himself as Saint Luke. Saint Luke is a patron saint of artists. This is a still life by Zuberan and we think about still lives coming from the Netherlands.
This is a rare example of one by a Spanish Baroque painter and it's housed in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. So I encourage you to look at it if you can. This is a masterpiece of a still life. What looks like a beautiful tablescape is filled with religious symbols. The precise placement of the three vignettes could have been understood and as a reference to the Holy Trinity.
The painting can be thought of as a tribute to the Virgin Mary. Oranges and their blossoms, the cup of water, both symbolize impurity. The thornless rose referring to her immaculate conception of Christ. These are so perfectly painted that I encourage you to go take a look at it and see it up close.
Just for fun, I took this picture when I was visiting... the Hispanic Society in New York City and it reminded me of the Zuberon now this is not as successful a composition and it's very odd to us because we see we've got like this cabbage in this dead bird which would have been for dinner hanging from these cords but it it shows you that this is by an unknown artist and maybe the reason he's unknown is that this was not as expertly painted as what we saw with the as with the previous one by Zubaron. But it's nice to see a counter-reference, and certainly to get a sense of the scale, because this is like three feet high and six feet wide.
Here is a tribute to a saint by Zubaron. This idea of the crucified Christ who is not dead yet is repeated here. You see how the saint's hands are bound.
and that his head collapses onto his shoulder but he's still holding up his body. Do you see the note here? It tells us what we're looking at. So, chiaroscuro, tenebrism. We're of course looking at oil on canvas.
I think the asymmetry of the composition is what makes this so interesting. The fact that his head is rolled over onto his shoulder makes a very unique statement. Our best-known Spanish Baroque painter, and a painter who you could teach a whole semester about, is Diego Velázquez.
Velázquez was able to study in Italy directly with Caravaggio as a young painter, and you can see his influence there. The Water Carrier of Seville from 1619 is one of his very early works, and what could be easily thought of as a genre painting, a scene from daily life, here shows us something more. There's no... politics or moral allegory no religious message this is a sweet moment between a street vendor and a boy who has enough money to buy a glass of water imagine what it's like to carry a giant ceramic jug full of water around and try to make your living that way look at his tattered clothing look at his cast gaze.
He does not make eye contact with the young man who's buying the glass of water from him. Obviously the light source is unseen off to the left and we've got dark passages of tenebrism around the borders. When you see a detail of this work you can even see the drops of condensation on the exterior of the water jug. This is his crucifixion of 1630. This is a large-scale 8x5 oil on canvas, and this is very much a counter-Reformation theme of suffering in order to gain moral peace.
This is very subtle and restrained compared to what we're going to see by Rubens, who's a Dutch Baroque Catholic painter who we're going to talk about very shortly. A little bit less tenebrism, still lots of chiaroscuro. And...
This is interesting because it's unsure at what point in the process of Christ's death we are at here. Obviously, he's been there a while. You can see that he's wounded. You see the aura around his head, but he doesn't show that strong weight shift that you'd see if he were truly dead.
The surrender of Brita, then, is a large-scale work commissioned by Philip IV, a place where foreign dignitaries would have been greeted. This shows the power and strength of the Spanish military and especially in a victory. Can you tell which side of the painting has the victors and which has the losers with a capital L? See if you can find them. There is an exaggerated respect here for the losing side.
This is after the 80 Years War between Spain and the Low Countries, or the Netherlands, if you will. You can see that the guy is surrendering the key, the mayor or the general is surrendering the keys to the city to the Spaniard. And the Spaniard is shown as this great gentleman with his direct gaze and his brotherly gesture, putting his hand on the shoulder.
of the person who he has just conquered that gesture is is good and he's stopping the man from kneeling oh no please don't submit yourself to me so this is gone the typical carnage of a battlefield although if you look in the background you can see the smoldering burning city have you figured out which side the losers are on well these are the low country losers look at him looking straight at us big tear in his pants Whereas the Spanish troops are orderly. You see how they're holding their pikes straight up and down? And again, the backside of a horse. Remember, he studied with Caravaggio and had direct access.
Now, Velazquez was nowhere near here. This is all recreated fantasy in his head. So here is a close-up.
This is what we call this... masterful brushwork when we look at this scene from a distance you can tell that they're wearing leather armor with metal embellishments and lace collars and satin and and here you can see it's nothing but a few perfectly placed quick brushstrokes there's that young guy who's looking at us saying as if to say what's gonna happen to me One of the most important things about Velazquez, beside his amazing skill, is his relationship with the King of Spain. He is more than just the court painter.
In fact, he has the ear of the king. He has risen to a high level in the Spanish court. He receives a knighthood.
He is a knight of Santiago, which is the highest order that a non-monarch can get. So he is constantly painting pictures of Philip. Now this is Philip in a typical equestrian portrait.
Remember that when we have equestrian portraiture, it's showing the strength of the ruler. And then here is Philip's son, the next king. A little tiny guy, also on a rearing horse. You can see Philip is a Habsburg.
He has that, what we call a Habsburg chin. Remember the Habsburgs were from... the Holy Roman Empire up in the northern regions and they happen to have control of the throne at this time. So Philip and his ancestors are the folks who are sending the conquistadors to the New World so you can put that in part of your mental rolodex. Velazquez's most beloved and most discussed work is Las Meninas.
The name translates to the maids. This is a portrait of the Infanta Maria who is a daughter of Philip IV and Queen Mariana. It is a huge painting, 10 feet by 9 feet. And you get a sense of that because, dear friends, Velazquez has had the nerve and audacity to include himself in the portrait of the princess.
So look, here he is and here is the canvas. So the intimation is that this is the canvas that he is working on. and that is the canvas that we are seeing. You notice here is the Infanta, the little princess, and she is escorted by her ladies-in-waitings and her governess, their loyal mastiff dog at their side, but there's a lot more going on here. One of the things that happens is there's a lot of movement that's created through the gaze where people are looking.
So she is looking at us, he is looking at us. She is looking at us. She is looking at her. This guy in the back is looking at us.
And then we notice this very strange image in the back of the room. There's so much tenebrism we can hardly make it out. In fact, the question is, is that a mirror or is that another painting? Is Velazquez painting the King and the Queen Are the king and the queen just walking by to see how the portrait of the child is doing and everyone is looking up at that moment?
People just absolutely cannot decide. But I'll tell you what, this painting is often replicated and addressed by other artists. Here is Picasso's homage.
Here is the Infanta Marina later in life. So I hope you'll take some time reading in detail about this work. It was once called the Theology of Painting.