Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
October 13, 2019 – February 17, 2020 West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 72, 73
This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.
Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spainis the first major exhibition held outside Spain to celebrate the art of the most important sculptor active on the Iberian Peninsula during the first half of the 16th century. Berruguete was a revolutionary force in the arts, famed for creating sculptures in painted wood that convey astonishing depths of emotion through their dramatic poses, gestures, and facial expressions. The exhibition presents more than 40 works from across his varied career, including an early painting from his time in Italy as well as a selection of his drawings. The primary focus is on his sculptures, however. A large group of his finest have been lent by the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid. Some are used at the Gallery to recreate a section of one of his elaborate, multi-tiered altarpieces, known as retablos in Spanish.
The exhibition is curated by C. D. Dickerson III, curator and head of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
A fully illustrated catalog accompanying the exhibition is the first general book on Berruguete published in English and features essays by Dickerson as well as Manuel Arias Martínez, head of collections and deputy director, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid, and Mark McDonald, curator of prints and drawings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The catalog is published by the National Gallery of Art in association with the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas; Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica/Center for Spain in America, Madrid and New York; and Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Painted by Alonso Berruguete’s talented father, Pedro, this exquisite scene of the Virgin and Child shows the enduring influence of Flemish painting on the arts of Castile. Berruguete must have started his career in command of a similar style of painting — now called the Hispano-Flemish style.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Alonso Berruguete, Salome, c. 1514–1517, oil on panel, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Image: Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence
This is one of only a handful of paintings that survive from Berruguete’s time in Italy. It depicts Salome, who ordered Saint John the Baptist’s beheading. Here she holds his head on a silver platter. Her long fingers, elegant pose, demure gaze, and idealized features are consistent with mannerism, a style of art that was becoming fashionable in Florence during the 1510s. Berruguete was in the vanguard of the movement. Like other mannerist artists, he favored exaggerated forms and complicated poses over the restrained beauty of earlier Renaissance art.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
This is one of four reliefs from the retablo mayor of San Benito depicting scenes from the life of Saint Benedict. Here Benedict is shown converting a heretic who had been trying to rob a poor farmer. The man falls, terrified, from his horse as he watches Benedict perform a miracle.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Gil de Siloe, Saint James the Greater, 1489/1493, alabaster with paint and gilding, Lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1969, 69.88
Doubtless seen by Berruguete during one of his visits to northern Castile, this exquisite statuette of Saint James the Greater originally decorated Gil de Siloe’s masterwork in alabaster, the tomb of King John II of Castile and Queen Isabella of Portugal in the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, near Burgos. The complex pattern of angular drapery folds, attention to minute details, and elongated bodily features are characteristic of the late Gothic style brought to Castile during the fifteenth century by northern artists like Gil.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Spanish (Castile), The Miracle of the Palm Tree on the Flight to Egypt, c. 1490–1510, painted walnut with gilding, Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1938, 38.184
Painted wood sculpture was the norm in Castile long before Berruguete’s time, as seen in this group executed in a traditional style that reflects the influence of sculpture from northern Europe.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Bartolomé Ordóñez, The Lamentation of Christ, c. 1518–1519, walnut, private collection
This moving relief was likely carved in Barcelona around 1519, the year Berruguete visited the city. Executed by Bartolomé Ordóñez, a sculptor who, like Berruguete, was from Castile and had worked in Italy, it reflects the shallow carving style of Donatello, the great Florentine master of the fifteenth century. The relief is a reminder that Berruguete was not the only Spanish artist introducing the lessons of the Italian Renaissance to Spain. Ordóñez’s influence was limited, however, as he died the following year.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
This is Berruguete’s earliest surviving sculpture, which comes from a monastic church near Valladolid, the town in central Castile where the artist moved in 1522. Depicting the bound and tortured Christ as he is presented to jeering crowds on the way to his crucifixion, the figure is likely to have stood on an altar, perhaps as the central figure in a retablo (altarpiece). Berruguete’s treatment of the subject was unconventional in Castile. Instead of following tradition and covering Christ’s body with scourge marks and blood, Berruguete elicits sympathy from the viewer through other means. The cross-legged pose, slender limbs, and unsupported arms create a sense of unbalance that conveys Christ’s helplessness. The solution reflects works of art that Berruguete would have studied in Italy.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
One of Berruguete’s most celebrated sculptures, this group depicts the moment when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac on God’s orders. As the anguished Abraham looks heavenward in disbelief, his terrified son kneels and awaits his fate. Before Abraham could carry out the act, however, God appeared and offered him a ram to sacrifice instead.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Alonso Berruguete, The Prophet Daniel (after Michelangelo), c. 1512–1517, red chalk, Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, Colección Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, 2453
In Rome, Berruguete was granted permission to study Michelangelo’s recently completed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, as evidenced by this study of the prophet Daniel. It is among the earliest drawings of a single figure from the ceiling. A later inscription on a strip added to the top of the sheet records Berruguete’s name, profession, fame, and visit to Rome.
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Alonso Berruguete, Job or Levi, after c. 1525, pen and brown ink, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection, 1922.50
Alonso BerrugueteFirst Sculptor of Renaissance Spain
Organization: The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid
Sponsors: The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Fund. Additional funding is provided by The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art.
Passes: Admission is always free and passes are not required