The Spanish series

Sculpture in Spain

The Spanish character has expressed itself in sculpture more forcibly than in painting. In no other country, perhaps, do we find a people whose native taste for carving in wood and stone is so deep-rooted, so essentially an outgrowth of the strong life of the race. To understand the art of Spain you must know her sculpture. As far back as the prehistoric Iberian period we find traces of a vigorous school of sculpture in Spain, which, though based on Greek and Asiatic sources, yet attained a striking individuality of its own. Professor Pierre Paris of Bordeaux says of these prehistoric carvings that the figures are simple and virile, while the women are distinguished by dignity of attitude and nobility of face, expressive of deep religious gravity. The finest examplea supreme type of primitive{2} Iberian sculpture, very fascinating in its curious originalityis the Lady of Elche, the bust in the Louvre, which Pierre Paris, in agreement with Reinach, dates about 440 B.C. Of this wonderful work Pierre Paris writes: In her enigmatic face, ideal and yet real, in her living eyes, on her voluptuous lips, on her passive and severe forehead, are summed up all the nobility and austerity, the promises and the reticences, the charm and the mystery of woman.... She is above all Spanish, not only by the mitre and the great wheels that frame her delicate face, but by the disturbing strangeness of her beauty. She is indeed more than Spanish: she is Spain itself, Iberia arising still radiant with youth from the tomb in which she has been buried for more than twenty centuries.[A] This is true. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60898
Author: Calvert, Albert Frederick
Release Date: Dec 12, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English