Page 45 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

quently his design for the chapel follows the tapestries were the most esteemed and valued response to a stipulation in the queen's last will
norms of the Toledan late Gothic favored by the medium of the pictorial arts, far surpassing and others later by her family. Paintings by or
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queen. Construction began in 1506 and termi- paintings as treasured objects. Collectors attributed to Rogier van der Weyden, Hans
nated in 1519, by which time the emperor admired not only the intricate workmanship but Memling, and Dirk Bouts attest to Isabella's
Charles v, grandson of the Catholic Monarchs, also the sumptuous effect produced by what refined taste in Flemish painting.
had ascended the throne of Spain. He was were actually portable mural decorations capable Such was her admiration of this art that she
decidedly unimpressed by what he saw, dryly of transforming even the humblest surround- hired two excellent Flemish masters to work at
characterizing the chapel as a "meager sepul- ings into appropriate settings for royal majesty. her court. In 1492 Michel Sittow, a native of
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cher for the glory of my grandparents/' His For an itinerant court tapestries were an indis- Estonia trained in the Ghent-Bruges school, was
remark reflects the major change in artistic taste pensable component of political stagecraft. appointed court painter at the elevated salary
from Gothic to Renaissance that began in the Unfortunately their inherent fragility made of fifty thousand maravedis, which placed him
early sixteenth century, and his orders to adorn them susceptible to damage, and all but a few fifth on the pay scale of all court servants. 17
the chapel paid little heed to the existing style. panels of this enormous collection have Sittow had an excellent reputation as a portrait-
Although Isabella was to die without seeing disappeared (see cat. 33). ist, a skill apparently lacking among his Spanish
her final resting place, she was concerned from The illuminated manuscripts have fared contemporaries. The survival rate of his por-
the start that it be suitably decorated with somewhat better, although again only a small traits is fairly low, but the few extant works bes-
impressive liturgical objects and devotional portion of the original holding survives. peak his excellence in the genre.
paintings. Ferdinand respected her wishes and, Isabella, who had a serious interest in languages Four years later Sittow was joined by an artist
in due course, transferred numerous objects to and learning, amassed a library of some 393 known as Juan de Flandes, who was also a prod-
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the royal chapel. These objects came from the books and manuscripts, mostly kept in the Alca- uct of the Ghent-Bruges school. A painter of
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extraordinary art collection that the queen had zar of Segovia. The majority were religious exquisite sensibility, he collaborated with Sittow
accumulated during the thirty years of her texts, but there were several grammars as well on what has become the best-known work of
reign, a collection that was one of the most as romances, chronicles, histories, and juridical the Isabelline period, the so-called Polyptich
important in Europe at the time. treatises. Her small but choice collection of illu- Altarpiece of Queen Isabella (cats. 43-46). This
Isabella's collection comprised four parts: minated manuscripts featured several exquisite ensemble was left unfinished at Isabella's death,
illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, paintings, examples from Flemish workshops, notably, in at which time it consisted of forty-seven small
and decorative objects including gems and addition to the manuscript from Cleveland in panels depicting scenes from the life of Christ
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jewelry. Although only a small percentage of this catalogue (cat. 34), the Book of Hours of and the Virgin. Sittow is thought to be the
the collection has escaped destruction and Isabella of Castile (Biblioteca de Palacio, author of some of the extant panels, including
depredation, numerous inventories evoke the Madrid) and the Breviary of Isabella of Castile the Assumption of the Virgin (cat. 45), a work
impressive size and extent of her holdings. (British Library, London), the latter being one of great refinement and delicacy. Juan de
In assessing the queen's collection it may of the richest manuscripts produced in the late Flandes, who did the major share of the work, is
seem perverse to focus initially on its size and fifteenth century. In addition the queen patro- no less an artist, even surpassing his colleague
not on its contents. By modern criteria, which nized Spanish miniature painters such as Juan in the creation of limpid light effects that wash
are highly selective and emphasize exemplary de Tordesillas, who illuminated the text of the gently over the landscape.
works, a large collection is not necessarily a Missal of Isabella the Catholic (Capilla Real, Sittow and Juan de Flandes ceased to work
great collection. But in Isabella's period, art was Granada). The royal account books list a for the Spanish court after the death of Isabella,
a means to display magnificence, the unmistak- number of illuminators, both Spanish and for- further proof that she was the driving force
able hallmark of powerful rulers. It was also eign, who illustrated books for the library. behind the monarchs' artistic policy. While
a time when the intrinsic value of objects — The northward bias of the queen's taste Sittow returned to the north, Flandes decided to
precious metals, rare gemstones, expensive naturally extended to the art of painting. remain in Castile and worked for a succession of
cloths — counted at least as much as exquisite During the middle years of the fifteenth cen- ecclesiastical patrons until his death in 1519.
craftsmanship or artistry. Thus Isabella owned tury Castile virtually had become an artistic Sittow and Flandes were undoubtedly the
impressive quantities of gold and silver objects province of Flanders. As early as 1428-1429, most refined painters in Isabelline Spain, but
and tapestries which, to her contemporaries, Jan van Eyck, renowned as the artist who had their activities account for only a tiny part of
would have overshadowed her nonetheless sig- renewed late Gothic painting in the lowlands, the pictorial production of the period, most of
nificant collection of paintings. had visited the Iberian Peninsula and been which was in the hands of Spanish artists. The
Isabella's taste in tapestries, paintings, and received by Juan n. Copies after his works are demand for paintings from the ecclesiastical
illuminated manuscripts, as in architecture and known to have existed in Spanish collections of sector was far greater than from the court, and
sculpture, leaned heavily toward the Nether- the period. Thereafter each new wave of Flem- this demand was satisfied by practitioners of
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lands. The important commercial ties between ish painters found markets and imitators in the Hispano-Flemish style. These masters have
Castilian sheepherders and Flemish cloth manu- Castile, giving rise to the distinctive adaptive fallen into oblivion, in large measure because
facturers furnished the perfect conduit for style known as Hispano-Flemish. the quality of their work pales compared to
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works of art, especially tapestries. Isabella may Isabella inherited several important works by their models, the masters of fifteenth-century
have owned as many as 370 of them, a truly northern masters and avidly acquired others, Flanders. The problem is further complicated
enormous collection for the time. She acquired and these composed the majority of her collec- because the most successful of these painters
some of them from merchants involved in the tion of more than two hundred paintings. Fate tended to take an artisanal approach to their
cloth trade. 14 has been somewhat kinder to them. A repre- practice, establishing workshops that absorbed
The importance of this sizable accumulation sentative sample is preserved in the royal their personal identities.
is difficult to overestimate. In this period chapel, Granada, where some were sent in The problems in assessing these artists are

44 CIRCA 1492