Some Questions About the Flemish Model in Aragonese Painting 71

Chapter 2 Some Questions About the Flemish Model in Aragonese Painting (1440-1500)

Alberto Velasco

1 Prior Considerations

The 1440s were a time when a change of pictorial model began in the territories of the Crown of Aragon, with the International Gothic Style gradually being replaced by one with north-European roots. Needless to say, in the kingdom of Aragon the Flemish model was implanted over the native International Style painting, as in the rest of the territories belonging to the Crown. If we take the Catalan case as a reference, this was when Bernat Martorell began to intro- duce changes into his works, incorporating some aspects that were a prelude for what would come later, and this was also the time when Jaume Huguet, the great representative of the Late Gothic in these lands, began to work in Catalonia. So, what happened in Aragon? In general lines, it can be stated that the pan- orama of what we know about the implantation of the Flemish model is not the same as in Barcelona or Valencia, as the surviving documentation and works are insufficient to explain how the changes came about. For example, among the painters working in Aragonese territory during the 1440s and 1450s we can find noboby who travelled to the Netherlands. It is not until around 1474, when Bartolomé Bermejo settled in Daroca, that we find an artist who surely had travelled there and been in contact with the works of Jan van Eyck or Rogier van der Weyden.1 In the same sense, in the Aragon of the 1440s and 1450s, we have no documentary proof of a long enough list of foreign artists to for us to believe that they had an important influence on the evolution of the native pictorial language.

1 This article has received support from the research project “Expresividad, sentimiento y emo- ción (siglos XII-XV)” (Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Spanish Government, ref. HAR2016-75028-P, Universitat de Lleida, senior researcher: Dr. Flocel Sabaté). In the field of sculpture, there is the case of Hans Piet d’Ansó, “ymaginaire de nacion de Alamanes”, who travelled from Saragossa to Perpignan in 1474 “(...) por veir las dichas obras que alla son las quales quiere mirar por instruirse de aquellas por su arte”. See Manuel R. Zarco, Documentos inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España, (Madrid: Viuda de Calero, 1870), pp. 356-557.

In the period between 1435 in 1455, a group of painters whose work we know, including Pascual Ortoneda, Blasco de Grañén and Pere García de Benavarri, took a step forward compared with painters like Benito Arnaldín, Juan de Leví, Nicolás Solana or Bonanat Zahortiga. We can surely include in this group Bernat Ortoneda, Jaume Romeu, Salvador Roig and Juan and Jaime Arnaldín, all documented but with a catalogue of works as yet undefined, although some proposals have been put forward. In parallel, a series of anonymous masters active in the same years also appeared on the scene. Notable among these is the Master of San Bartolomé, newly identified and active around 1445-1450,2 as well as the Master of Alloza, close to the former and who, thus, is supposed to have been working around the same time.3 Some of them still show important links to the International Gothic Style, but stand out especially for including aspects of Late-Gothic language. Somewhat later, and thus more evolved, is the Master of Saint George and the Princess4. In contrast with earlier times, the arrival of the Flemish model implied changes that fundamentally affected the pictorial language, as the altarpieces did not undergo any great structural evolution. Rather, one must talk about the perfecting of solutions already applied during the International Style, like those by Blasco de Grañén. In questions of structural innovation, the second half of the 15th century was a time when the lead was taken up by the kingdom of Castile, which, as we shall see, led to the culmination of the model of Late-Gothic altarpiece, in contrast with earlier times in which the Crown of Aragon was clearly in the lead.5 Under the International Style, a type of altarpiece was consolidated in Aragon that did not differ from the model that spread to the other territories of the Crown and the Hispanic kingdoms. It meant another step towards the verticalization and monumentalization that grew in the second half of the 14th century, and tended towards the systematic occupation of the wall of the apse and to organising the sets in vertical and

2 Guadaira Macías, ‘Noves aportacions al catàleg de dos mestres aragonesos anònims. El Mestre de Sant Jordi i la princesa i el Mestre de Sant Bartomeu’, Butlletí del Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, 11 (2010), pp. 33-61. 3 Lacarra situated his activity in the third quarter of the 15th century (1445-1460). See María del Carmen Lacarra, ‘Anunciació i Epifania. Dos compartiments de retaule’, in Jaume Huguet. 500 anys, (Barcelona: Departament de Cultura, Generalitat de Catalunya, 1993), pp. 228-231; cfr. Rosa Alcoy, San Jorge y la princesa. Diálogos de la pintura del siglo XV en Cataluña y Aragón, (Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2004), pp. 145-156 and 163. 4 For this painter see Guadaira Macías, La pintura aragonesa de la segona meitat del segle XV relacionada amb l’escola catalana: dues vies creatives a examen, (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2014, Ph. D.). More recent Alberto Velasco, ‘Rediscovering the Master of the Saint George and the Princess: new paintings’, in Colnaghi Studies Journal, 2 (2018), pp. 100-121. 5 Justin E.A. Kroesen, Staging the Liturgy. The Medieval Altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula, (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), pp. 145-146.