GONZÁLEZ Y SERRANO, Bartolomé

Spanish painter. He spent his early years in Valladolid and Madrid. According to Palomino, he was trained with Patricio Cajés, but also important was the influence of Italian MannerismGLOSSARYA movement in Italian art from about 1520 to 1600. Developing out of the Renaissance, Mannerism rejected Renaissance balance and harmony in favor of emotional intensity and ambiguity. In Mannerist painting, this was expressed mainly through severe distortions of perspective and scale; complex and crowded compositions; strong, sometimes harsh or discordant colors; and elongated figures in exaggerated poses. In architecture, there was a playful exaggeration of Renaissance forms (largely in scale and proportion) and the greater use of bizarre decoration. Mannerism gave way to the Baroque. Leading Mannerists include Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, El Greco and Tintoretto. at the court (1600-06) of Philip III in Valladolid. Knowledge of naturalistic works by such Italians as Orazio Borgianni, with their monumental forms and chiaroscuroGLOSSARYIn painting, the modelling of form (the creation of a sense of three-dimensionality in objects) through the use of light and shade. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. The term chiaroscuro is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition., also determined González's style, especially as a religious painter. González is first documented in 1606, after which he worked for the court in Burgos, Lerma, El Pardo and El Escorial. In 1608 he witnessed the will of the court portraitist, Pantoja de la Cruz, who died that year. González succeeded Pantoja de la Cruz in the completion of the royal portaits for the galleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen). of the palace of El Pardo, which replaced those destroyed by fire in 1604. One of his earliest known portraits is that of Margaret of Austria (1609; Madrid, Prado), which shows the influence of Pantoja de la Cruz.