03 — ARTWORK
Façade (detail)
UNKNOWN MASTER, Spanish · 1533 →
- MEDIUM
- Stone
- 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
- 601 × 720 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The upper part of the façadethe front or principal face of a building, especially one elaborately constructed; a blind façade is a façade that is purely decorative and does not relate to the structure of the building., divided into three registers and crowned by a friezea horizontal band of architectural decoration; in a classical entablature, the horizontal member band between the architrave and the cornice., brings to mind an altarpieceA picture or sculpture that stands on or is set up behind an altar. The term reredos is used for an ornamental screen or partition, not directly attached to the altar table but affixed to the wall behind it. A diptych is an altarpiece consisting of two panels, a triptych one of three panels, and a polyptych one of four or more panels. From the 14th to 16th century, the altarpiece was one of the most important commissions in European art; it was through the altarpiece that some of the most decisive developments in painting and sculpture came about., or a shrine or jewel-box. The lowest of the three registers is decorated with a central medallionIn architecture, a large ornamental plaquc or disc. enclosing portraits of their Catholic majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella. On either side are panels of grotesques. The lavish and crowded ornamentation covers every inch of the stonework. The Spanish ornamentists hated empty spaces, and in the 16th century even more than in the RomanesqueStyle of art and architecture prevailing throughout most of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, the first style to achieve such international currency. The dominant art of the Middle Ages was architecture, and 'Romanesque', like 'Gothic', is primarily an architectural term that has been extended to the other arts of the period. As the name suggests, it indicates a derivation from Roman art, and sometimes Romanesque is used to cover all the developments from Roman architecture in the period from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the flowering of the Gothic roughly AD 500-1200. More usually, however, it is applied to a distinctive style that emerged, almost simultaneously, in several countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain - in the 11th century. It is characterized most obviously by a new massiveness of scale, reflecting the greater political and economic stability that followed a period when Christian civilization seemed in danger of extinction. Romanesque painting and sculpture are generally strongly stylized, with little of the naturalism and humanistic warmth of classical or later Gothic art. The forms of nature are freely translated into linear and sculptural designs which are sometimes majestically calm and severe and at others are agitated by a visionary excitement that can become almost delirious. Because of its expressionistic distortion of natural form, Romanesque art, as with other great non-naturalistic styles of the past, has had to wait for the revolution in sensibility brought about by the development of modern art in order to be widely appreciated. period, ornamental sculpture burgeoned at the expense of the monumental structure.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rb27043117de0ab,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Façade (detail) by UNKNOWN MASTER, Spanish},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/unknown-master-spanish-rb5c47b40011189/faade-detail-rb27043117de0ab},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
