14 November 2012

Course

HISPANIC AMERICAN ART IN NAVARRA

Sumptuary arts and some examples in Navarre

D. Alfredo J. Morales

From the 16th century onwards, the industrial and sumptuary arts reached an extraordinary level in the American viceroyalties development, creating a varied set of works that combined their material wealth with a high technical level. developmentThe curiosity and interest aroused in Europe for such creations was associated with the recognition of the high Degreeof the pre-Hispanic arts and the expertise of their craftsmen, highlighted by some chroniclers and by such authoritative voices as those of Bartolomé de las Casas and Toribio de Motolinía. This skilland virtuosity are especially evident in a singular art that reached a special developmentin New Spain, plumaría. It corresponds to the workmade by the indigenous people through the skilful combination of multicoloured feathers and which in workshops supervised by the mendicant orders was used to make pieces of liturgical trousseau and devotional paintings, including some mitres, such as the one preserved in the cathedral of Toledo.

The contactwith the Orient, channelled through the Manila Galleon, which linked the port of Acapulco with the capital of the Philippines, was decisive in the developmentof the Spanish-American industrial arts and in the evolution of its decorative objects. It carried a series of refined, sumptuous and exotic products that were considered extraordinary and prestigious objects. These precious goods, with their undeniable capacity for seduction, exerted a clear influence on the decorative arts in all the territories of the Hispanic monarchy for centuries. Among the rich and delicate objects that the Galleon carried to Acapulco and from there to Veracruz to be shipped to the metropolis, none equalled porcelain. At first it came from China and later from Japan, as in the case of the shinbones in the Chapel of the Virgen del Camino, in the parish church of San Saturnino in Pamplona. Interest in such creations led to their forms being copied and their technique imitated, as happened with the Mexican pottery of Tonalá, of which a pair of tibores is preserved in the Chapel of the Virgen del Valle in Écija. The aforementioned Galleon or Nao de la China also carried ivories, some made in the Philippines and others in the Portuguese territories of India, silks and objects made of mother-of-pearl, or which had pieces of this material embedded in lacquered wood, as in the case of the objects of namban art made in Japan at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, to which a chest in Pamplona cathedral corresponds. The influence of these oriental arts led to the enconchados or paintings inlaid in mother-of-pearl that were produced in New Spain in the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries, such as the series of "The Conquest of Mexico" in the Museo de América in Madrid. Also influenced by these were the so-called Mexican lacquers, which varied in their final resultaccording to the materials used and their techniques, with the creations of Michoacán, Olinalá and Uruapan standing out.

The desire for ostentation, the interest in luxury and virtuosity can be clearly seen in the pieces of silverware and jewellery. Although in the case of the former, the typological novelties of the Hispano-American pieces are scarce, they are very attractive due to their decoration. They are also of special interest because of their frequent presence in religious enclosures throughout the Iberian Peninsula. They are the result of bequests and donations made by Indians who had achieved success staffand social success in the Americas. It was a way of giving thanks to Divine Providence and of bearing witness to their success before their countrymen. The miter and crosier of San Fermín, made by the Cantón workshops in 1764, were donated by Don Felipe Iriarte, a resident in Mexico, and were received in Pamplona two years later.
 

Tibor. China. 18th century
Parish church of San Saturnino. Pamplona

Staff of San Fermín. Canton (China). 18th century
Parish Church of San Lorenzo. Pamplona

Mitre of San Fermin. Canton (China). 18th century
Parish Church of San Lorenzo. Pamplona