03 — ARTWORK
Exterior view
- MEDIUM
- Photo
- TYPE
- Other
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
- FILE
- 1000 × 667 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The Renaissance PlateresqueSpanish Plateresco (Silversmith-like), main architectural style in Spain during the late 15th and the 16th centuries, also used in Spain's American colonies. Cristóbal de Villalón first used the term in 1539 while comparing the richly ornamented facade of the Cathedral of León to a silversmith's intricate work. Later the name came to be generally applied to late Gothic and early Renaissance Spanish architecture, since it was characterized by an intricate and minutely detailed relief ornament that is generally applied to the surface of buildings for extravagant decorative effect and without regard for structural articulation. Favourite motifs of this florid ornament include twisted columns, heraldic escutcheons, and sinuous scrolls. Clusters of this jewelry-like ornament contrast with broad expanses of flat wall surface. The Plateresque style went through two distinguishable phases. The first phase, termed the Isabelline style because it flourished during the reign of Isabella I, lasted from about 1480 to about 1540. In this phase (also known as the Gothic-Plateresque style), the forms of late Flamboyant Gothic still predominate, and Renaissance elements are used with only imperfect understanding. The first phase, like its successor, utilized Mudejar ornament -, i.e., the intricate and elegant decorative patterns used by Moorish artists working in Christian-ruled Spain. The Isabelline style is well represented in the buildings of Enrique de Egas and Diego de Riaño and is typified by the facade of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid (1488), in which architectural ornamentation seems free from all external dictates and pursues its own life without regard to scale, composition, placement, or appropriateness. The second phase, the Renaissance-Plateresque, or simply the Plateresque, lasted from about 1525 to 1560. The architect and sculptor Diego de Siloé (d. 1563) helped inaugurate this phase, in which High Renaissance structural and decorative elements clearly predominated over late Gothic ones. In the Granada Cathedral (1528-43) and other buildings, Diego evolved a purer, more severe, harmonious, and unified style using massive geometric forms; correct classical orders became frequent, and nonstructural Gothic ribbing tended to disappear in favour of Italianate round arches and domical vaults. The buildings of Alonso de Covarrubias and of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, particularly the latter's facade of the University of Alcalá de Henares (1541-53), are the masterworks of the second style, which lasted only a few decades. Even the balance and correctness of the style seemed excessively rich to the sombre young man who became King Philip II in 1556 and supervised construction of the severe El Escorial. style in Spain is purely one of architectural ornament. There was no change in structure; heavy walls were used with either GothicGothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style. In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style. Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form. The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. ribbed vaults or intricately carved wooden ceilings (artesando) that indicated Moorish influence. Many of the elements of decoration also preserved the influence of Gothic and Moorish art, such as the Flamboyantstyle flamboyant (French), the last major style of French Gothic architecture, so called because of its highly elaborate "flame-like" tracery. It followed the Rayonnant. Gothic pinnaclea small turret-like architectural feature, often richly ornamented, that crowns parapets, pediments above windows or doors, flying buttresses, spires, tec. and pierced balustradeA rail supported by a row of small posts or open-work panels. or coats of arms and bits of heraldrythe study of the meaning of emblems and coats of arms, with the rules governing their use. used as ornamental motifs. Richly coloured tiles created decorative patterns on the walls as in Moorish art. The richness of the ClassicalRelating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration. decoration imported from northern Italy blended effectively with the elements of the Moorish and Flamboyant Gothic styles to form the new Plateresque style. The luxuriance of its ornament was a fitting expression of the splendour-loving culture that Spain developed as the wealth of the Americas began to pour in during the early 16th century.
Perhaps the most outstanding example of the style is the Ayuntamiento, or town hall, of Sevilla (Seville) by Diego de Riaño, with Lombard paneled pilasters on the ground floor and half columns completely covered with reliefA sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background. sculpture on the second floor. Also in the Lombard manner are the numerous medallions spotted over the wall under the windows or between the pilasters.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r1fc92802b49287,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Exterior view by RIAÑO, Diego de},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/riao-diego-de-r4fbb7348d9d9e8/exterior-view-r1fc92802b49287},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
