A more or less long process used to elapse between the commissioning of a work and its completion. It all began, traditionally, with the commitment on the part of the client and the chosen artist or the auction to the highest bidder. It continued with the invention or creation embodied in a drawing that, as the father of all the arts, preceded the execution of the work. The project did not always belong to the person who executed it, as it could be imposed by different circumstances. Viceroy Palafox summarized this process by stating that the painter "first makes the idea in the imagination, then the drawing and finally the image" and Francisco Pacheco in his Arte de la Pintura (1649), expresses it as follows: "Invention comes from good wit, and from having seen much, and from the imitation, copy and variety of many things, and from the news of history, and through the figure and movement of the significance of the passions, accidents and affections of the spirit".

Among the means that artists used to motivate their inventions, we should note everything they had within sight(naturalia atque artificialia), written sources and engraved prints. The importance of learning in a good workshop, relationships with artists and patrons and travel were outstanding aspects in the professional development of the masters in order to store in their minds visual and cultural sources. Those who possessed intellectual training were better prepared to include in their works symbolic and allegorical elements that enriched paintings, building facades, altarpieces and book covers. Alberti, in the 15th century, already proposed as model the pictor doctus versed in studia humanitatis and familiar with poets, orators and men of letters, "because from these erudite geniuses he will obtain not only excellent ornaments, but he will also benefit from his inventions".

The aim was, at least until the arrival of some contemporary trends, to obtain beautiful works and, above all, to achieve the capture, reception, dialogue and empathy with whoever approached them. Naturally, the criteria of beauty were in accordance with the aesthetic ideals of the different historical moments and the weight of great styles, artists and theorists. As for the dialogue between the sender and the receiver, let us remember that Alberti affirmed: "A story that you can truly praise and admire with reason, will be the one that shows itself so pleasant and ornate that it holds the eyes of the spectator, learned and unlearned, for a long time with pleasure and emotion". The aforementioned Francisco Pacheco, insisted on the same with these phrases: "Let the painter try that his figures move the spirits, some disturbing them, others making them happy, others inclining them to pity, others to contempt, according to the quality of the stories. And lacking this, let him think he has done nothing". To the gifts of creation must be added constancy, study and work, since, as Picasso pointed out, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working".

Through some examples of Navarre's cultural heritage corresponding to different periods, we will try to understand that process.

Commissioning and invention

The cold notarial contracts and the laconic accounts with which the art historian recomposes the past around cultural goods, do not provide data about the reasons that led to contracting with one artist or another: whether they were economic, formal or creative. agreement When correspondence exists, everything changes because its contents provide knowledge of the whole process that preceded the formal commission, after agreeing on themes, motifs, prices and deadlines. In a letter from the son of the Marquis of Montejaso to his father in 1633 regarding the decoration of the Recoletas of Pamplona, he wrote freely and frankly about the Pamplona masters -whom he called "great thieves"-, the methods of execution of the works and the models to be used.

Another letter of Miguel Gastón de Iriarte, written in Errazu in 1752 addressed to his brother-in-law and protector Don Martín de Elizacoechea, Bishop of Michoacán, who was paying for the sculptures of Luis Salvador Carmona for the church of Azpilcueta, states in reference letter to the same: "After having been in Madrid from six to seven months, I returned home and by May of this year, having spent the winter and spring in that Court in the company of my brother and children beautifully and very distracted with the bustle of so many people and novelties that occur every day in the Court, without my health having experienced the slightest novelty, I had at the same time the pleasure and pleasure of seeing how they worked the saints for the church of Azpilcueta by the direction of my brother, that I assure Your Illustriousness that they are very good and according to the intelligent very appreciable and liking them they wait to come, that besides that in the Kingdom there will be few similar ones, because today it is worked in Madrid of the best thing".

Also an excellent example are the letters between the painter José Eleizegui and Juan de Navascués in 1722 and 1740 for the realization of some parish and private commissions, studied by Faustino Menéndez Pidal.

Along with the letters, other documents such as the conference proceedings also tell us about the vigilance of the commissioner and the artist, as sample the strict monitoring that the Diputación del Reino de Navarra made of the illustrations of the edition of the Anales de Navarra in the eighteenth century. At the end of the day, the image of the Kingdom was at stake, whether in the portraits of its kings or in the most important historical events.

The mediation of prominent men in the execution of great works was also a constant since the Age average. Let us recall the role played by Rafael Múzquiz in getting Luis Paret to come to Viana to paint the chapel of San Juan in 1786. Finally, we must highlight the role of travel for architects and artists. Those who were lucky enough to leave and then return, did so with other budgets and the novelties inherent in having seen or worked on works that in Zaragoza or Madrid were leading in the development of the arts at the time.

Literary sources

Texts translated into images is a constant, either from literature of the time or at the time. The Bible, the Golden Legend, hagiography, contracts, some prayers, history books and literary works of all subject are behind figurative art.

In medieval art, in addition to sacred texts, other texts were used for the composition of biblical stories. For example, in the Preciosa door of the cloister of Pamplona, other texts derived from the Greek Transitus R, the homilies of Cosimo Vestidor and the Book of John, archbishop of Thessalonica, have been pointed out as sources, in addition to the Golden Legend. For the door of the Judgment of the cathedral of Tudela, those who have studied the topic differ about the sources: the Muslim eschatology, the Christian tradition, and even the medieval Navarrese legislation.

The reading of the Golden Legend, a work by the Dominican friar and archbishop of Genoa in the second half of the 13th century, Jacobo de la Vorágine, is more than necessary for the iconographic reading of the Gothic and even Renaissance panels of our altarpieces, as evidenced, for example, by the paintings dedicated to Saint Giles in the altarpiece of the Villaespesa chapel in the cathedral of Tudela (Bonanat Zaortiga, 1412) or those of the altarpiece of Saint Remigio in the chapel of the Museum of Navarre (Antón de Arara and Pedro de Lasao, 1551).

The representations of the lives of the saints in later times needed their hagiographies, and even their autobiographies, as is the case with well-known passages from the life of St. Teresa: transverberation (Life, 29), apparition of Christ at the column (Life, 39), imposition of the mantle (Life, 33) .... etc., which she herself describes and which served, in all their details, for engravers, painters and sculptors.

Graphic models: engraved prints

The knowledge of the great repertoires of engravings that ran through the workshops and artistic environments since the sixteenth century completes our understanding of many figurative compositions, while leaving sculptors and painters in their true place, sometimes as good executors, but in no case as creators.

Suffice it to recall the presence of prints by Dürer or Schongauer in late Gothic painting, or the engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi and Cornelis Cort in Renaissance painting. The weight of Dürer's models in the altarpiece of Santa María de Olite or the bench of the mayor of Cintruénigo, works by Pedro de Aponte, is evident, as are Raimondi's prints in the painters of the second third of the 16th century.

The Rubenesque imprint arrived through other prints by Paul Pontius or Schelte à Bolswert. To the latter engraver belongs the model that Vicente Berdusán used for his famous canvas of the Fall of St. Paul (1677). The series of coppers of the Museum of Navarre, from the convent of La Merced in Pamplona, with scenes from the Genesis, by Jacob Bouttats, is based on prints by Jean Sadeler.

Sculptors and painters hoarded engraved prints as the best guarantee of being able to succeed in any commission. In many cases they copied them faithfully, down to the last detail, in others they only took some motifs from different models to generate something new and, in a certain way, more creative.

Sometimes the model was presented by the one who commissioned the work, such as the Marquis of Montejaso, when he commissioned Miguel López de Ganuza in 1630 the Inmaculada for the façade of Recoletas in Pamplona, where he told him: "that the image be of the workmanship of a print or painting that I will show you, with its pedestal, with its average moon; the image well planted, with hands on, hair loose over the shoulder well stripped, with very good clothing, all well and perfectly finished".

Projects and drawings

Unfortunately, we barely preserve drawings with projects and traces of architectural works and figurative arts. In Spain, drawings were hardly kept, unlike in other countries such as Italy, where drawing was considered part of the creative process. The dictum of Father Gracián must have prevailed, who reminded us that it was never advisable to see things half done, "It is better that they enjoy their perfection. All principles are formless: the image of deformity remains. The memory of having seen the unfinished object prevents you from enjoying it once it is finished. Before things exist they are in nothingness, and when they begin to exist they are still within their nothingness. To contemplate how the most exquisite food is cooked, rather than appetite, produces disgust. The great master will prevent them from seeing his works in embryo. He must learn from nature not to expose them until they can taste".

In any case, the drawing was the preliminary step before undertaking a work. It was shown to the promoter or patron and, in the case of signing a deed of commitment before a notary, it was attached complete or divided in half, in order to verify whether the execution had followed the guidelines of model.

A good part of the drawings from the 16th to the 18th centuries are preserved in notarial or procedural documentation, although some were also kept by the commissioners of the works. Designs of altarpieces such as that of San Francisco Javier de Viana, the unrealized project for the largest altarpiece of the Recoletas of Pamplona, or those of the chapel of the Virgen del Camino, the Poor Clares of Tudela or the Carmelites of Lesaca give a good idea of how the sculptors and altarpiece designers handled geometry and design , as well as revealing pieces that in some cases have disappeared. The drawings, plans and elevations referring to the chapel of San Fermín and the façade of the Pamplona City Hall and the cathedral of the same city are more than outstanding examples as preserved sets to verify everything related to the gestation and approval of building models in the national panorama of the time.

On compromising occasions, a relevant person was asked for an opinion to make sure not to make a mistake. In the case of the facade of the Pamplona consistory and the altarpiece of the Virgen del Camino, the person consulted was a Navarrese member of the clergy who lived in Bilbao and was an expert in science, mathematics, music and arts, Don José Zaylorda.