March 12, 2014

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

CONVENTUAL PAMPLONA

Enclosures, decorum and quality in foreign painting

Ms. María Concepción García Gainza.
Chair of Heritage and Art of Navarre

The conventual cloisters preserve marvelous artistic pieces in their interior distributed in their choirs, chapter rooms, libraries and transits, spaces of silence filled with paintings whose vision gives rise to meditation since it is an exclusively religious art whose purpose is to move the devotion of the friar or nun who lives within its walls. The cloister is a closed world, stopped in time and marked by the time of its foundation, its patrons and orders. Parallel to other cities, it is also possible to speak of a hidden Pamplona, of an inner world that keeps a very rich artistic heritage although with the confiscation some pieces of B interest have been lost or have sought new accommodations in museums.

Although most of the cloister paintings have merely devotional value, among them are represented a high issue of important painters from many other schools whose attendance there is explained by being bequests and gifts from generous benefactors. As it is known in our country there were painters specialized in religious orders -Zurbarán, Murillo, Valdés Leal, Vicente Carducho, among others- who dedicated to make a subject of religious painting that required the internship of decorum, topic which was developed by Francisco Pacheco and other painting theorists and which consists of the adequate representation of the saints and divine figures to what they mean and to the time and space, to which had to be added the adaptation to the different spiritual sensibilities of the various religious orders and their objectives set in the founding constitutions.

A notable work for its interest is the series of Genesis composed of twelve oil paintings from the convent of La Merced in Pamplona, which entered the Museum of Navarre in 1961. Marked with the monogram J.B. it was identified by Enrique Valdivieso with Jacob Bouttats, a painter active in Antwerp, who was literally inspired by Sadeler's prints. With great narrative sense he develops the successive scenes of the Creation in lush landscapes with illuminated backgrounds and rich color. It constitutes the painter's most extensive series of the second half of the 17th century.

Jacob Bouttats, The Creation of Fish and Birds
(Museum of Navarra)

Sadeler, The creation of fish and birds.

The Augustinian Recollect nuns preserve the richest cloister with good signatures of painters from Madrid and Italy. Beginning with the magnificent portraits of the founders, both signed by Antonio Rizi in 1617, in connection with the court portrait of Sánchez Coello and Pantoja. The portrait of Don Juan de Ciriza, son of the founder and canon of the cathedral of Pamplona, has been attributed to Felipe Diriksen, a painter from Madrid, son of Flemish artists. A large canvas of the Immaculate Conception, head of the old main altarpiece of the church, is the work of Vicente Carducho, a Florentine painter who came to El Escorial. It represents the Apocalyptic Immaculate Conception over a landscape with the symbols of the litany of the Lauretan litany. An important painting is that of St. Augustine between the Resurrected Christ and the Virgin and Child, signed by Pedro Villafranca, a painter of the Madrid school and an active engraver. Worth mentioning is the Santo Tomás de Villanueva distributing the alms, signed by Francisco Camilo, in 1650, well known painter of cloisters. Saint Augustine was the titular of a "separate chapel" in the cloister. A painting of rich color and loose brushstrokes, typical features of the Madrid school of the time to which also belongs the Virgin of Bethlehem signed by Alonso del Arco in 1693.
 

Antonio Rizi, Don Juan de Ciriza, Marquis of Montejaso. 1617
(Convent of Augustinian Recollect nuns. Pamplona)

Antonio Rizi, Doña Catalina de Alvarado, Marquise of Montejaso. 1617
(Convent of Augustinian Recollect nuns. Pamplona).
 

Foreign painters are also represented such as the Venetian Palma who signature the Garland with Calvary, the Christ of Patience signed by the Italian Orazio Borgianni and the Virgin of Guadalupe that carries the signature of the Mexican painter Juan Correa.

Other remarkable paintings come from the cloisters, of Carmelites such as the Christ at the Column by Marcos de Leyva (1627) or the Immaculate Conception of the Augustinian nuns of San Pedro with the double signature of the painter Marcos Aguilera and his restorer Juan García de Miranda.

accredited specialization The large canvas (5 meters x 3.27) representing the Foundation of the Trinitarian Order, signed and dated by Carreño in 1666, a masterpiece of the Madrid school after Velázquez, whose inheritance appears innovated in its scenographic aspects and technical flaunts, a sum of Venetian and Flemish influences, deserves special mention. It was made as a large altar painting for the convent of the Trinitarians of Pamplona. According to Palomino, when the painting arrived in Pamplona, "where all the primitives of art are rushed", the friars did not want to receive it and Carreño called Vicente Berdusán, "painter of credit in that land", so that they would accept it. With the disentailment of 1836 the painting was sold to the 1st Duke of Palma and became part of his collection at the Château de Courson until 1964 when it was donated to the Louvre Museum where it is now part of the conference room of Spanish painting. The sketch signed by Carreño (Museum of Fine Arts in Vienna) is preserved, as well as his preparatory drawing signed by Francisco Rizi (Ufizzi Gallery in Florence). A fairly complete artistic history of what is considered the most important altar painting of the Madrid school of the second half of the seventeenth century.
 

Carreño de Miranda, Foundation of the Trinitarian Order, 1666
From the disappeared convent of the Trinitarians of Pamplona
(Louvre Museum)