New York

Polychromed sculpture from Spain and the Spanish New World has long been largely overlooked, even by the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, a little-visited jewel in New York’s Washington Heights. Established in 1904 by the collector and philanthropist Archer M. Huntington (1870-1955), it has been shuttered for almost five years for renovation. “Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh,” a compelling show of 22 painted sculptures from 1500 to 1800 that inaugurates the museum’s gradual reopening, highlights art from...

New York

Polychromed sculpture from Spain and the Spanish New World has long been largely overlooked, even by the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, a little-visited jewel in New York’s Washington Heights. Established in 1904 by the collector and philanthropist Archer M. Huntington (1870-1955), it has been shuttered for almost five years for renovation. “Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh,” a compelling show of 22 painted sculptures from 1500 to 1800 that inaugurates the museum’s gradual reopening, highlights art from its larger, storied collection that often goes unnoticed. Organized by Patrick Lenaghan, curator of prints, photographs and sculpture, and Hélène Fontoira Marzin, head of conservation, it reflects a sea change in critical thinking, and, as many of the works on view are newly acquired, a burgeoning taste for the medium. In a single gallery of these richly decorated and elaborately illusionistic works, so different from unpainted European sculpture, historic polychromed sculpture is enshrined at the very heart of Spanish culture.

'Resurrection' (c. 1485-1500)

Photo: Alfonso Lozano/The Hispanic Society of America

The show opens with a brief chronology of the art form in Spain. The lavishly gilded “Resurrection”
(c. 1485-1500), a superb Spanish Gothic relief, pictures a heroic Risen Christ framed by New Testament scenes in a composition that may have been part of a larger altarpiece. Its polished, modeled figures, dazzling ornamentation, and ingenious landscapes of craggy, scrunched mountains and stylized trees appear under gold-flecked skies that chart the passage of time in the Easter narrative. An attribution to Gil de Siloe, the leading Spanish sculptor of his day (with Netherlandish origins), is supported by comparisons with sculptures Siloe produced for Queen Isabella of Castile.

Two sumptuous polychromed busts (c. 1545) by Juan de Juni, a French sculptor who flourished in 16th-century Spain, likewise suggest the prestige afforded foreign-born artists and the increasingly emotional impact of Spanish Renaissance art. Designed as reliquaries (receptacles for sacred relics), they are considered imaginary portraits of Sts. Martha and Mary, the biblical sisters who, respectively, personified the active and contemplative life. The exhausted expression of the worldly Martha, who embodied the active life, vividly contrasts with the appearance of her pensive companion, whose flawless beauty and mournful, faraway gaze identify her as the more ruminative Mary. Although their history remains uncertain, the objects’ opulent, articulated surfaces and resonant female subjects suggest an important commission, and perhaps a gift for an audience of nuns.

By the 17th century, native artists enjoyed newfound stature, among them the Andalusian Pedro de Mena, known for his eloquent, hyperrealistic religious figures. His stunningly lifelike “St. Acisclus”
(c. 1680)—a handsome fictive likeness of an early Christian martyr marked by the subject’s slightly parted lips (as if about to speak), lustrous skin and gently tousled hair—is an evocative essay on the Spanish equation of chaste physical beauty and fervid spirituality. The naturalistic aesthetic, intended to encourage meditative devotion, would shape the era’s most powerful religious art. Though reduced to a portrait bust from a half-length figure, the sculpture remains, even in truncated form, a high point in the show.

Female artists, rare creatures in early modern Spain, are also introduced here, including Luisa Roldán (or La Roldána), whose work is currently enjoying a modest renaissance. In 1688 Roldán left her father’s studio in her native Seville—where she had created life-size figures, altarpieces and elaborate processional floats—to strike out on her own in Madrid. Though named court sculptor to the Spanish crown, she suffered financially until identifying a niche domestic market for small, decorated terra-cotta compositions that appealed to wealthy madrileñas. Three are on view here. “The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine” (1692-1706), once marred by grime but now sparklingly clean, is signed by the artist at the lower right and epitomizes the intimate and graceful figural ensembles she called “jewels.”

The show’s crucial final segment focuses on Latin America, and reveals how colonial-era sculptures, which are even more rarely exhibited and make the show an absolute must-see, could reflect both political and ethnic contexts. “Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor-slayer),” a rare surviving relief from c. 1600, represents the saint vanquishing Moorish invaders in Spain. Though the unknown Mexican sculptor clearly knew the iconic subject from prints, the winsome naivété of his toylike warhorse and the figure’s Aztec-style plumed headgear underscore its maker’s indigenous origins. In later works, the motif, redolent with the aura of the Spanish conquest, was altered to depict the militant Santiago not with Moors but with Indians slaughtered at his feet.

Far too soon, a revelatory array of works from 18th-century Ecuador draws the exhibition to a close. As seen in the gorgeously carved and gilded “St. Michael Archangel” (c. 1700-50), the ancient city of Quito developed a vibrant industry in sculpture of exceptional quality that was produced for regional markets and for export to Spain. The balletic pose of the winged figure—who brandishes a sword above a grimacing naked fiend—and his costume’s elaborate decoration, achieved with the estafado technique (in which patterns are etched into pigment layered over silver or gold), allowed the anonymous Ecuadorean sculptor to showcase both his sophisticated artistic training and impressive ability to mimic decorative indigenous textiles.

Nothing here prepares us, however, for the haunting and visceral “Four Fates of Man: Death; Soul in Hell; Soul in Purgatory; Soul in Heaven” (c. 1775), a quartet of polychromed half-figures attributed to Manuel Chili (known as Caspicara) that capture in unforgettable detail Catholic eschatological beliefs. The gruesome, skeletal death, the screaming, enchained figure of the damned who rips open his fiery red flesh, the suffering sinner in purgatory who weeps delicate glass tears, and the beatific, praying figure of the blessed perfectly capture the expressive power and relentless pictorial invention of the transplanted Spanish tradition.

Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh

The Hispanic Society Museum & Library, through Jan. 9, 2022

—Ms. Lewis, who taught art history for many years at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., writes about art for the Journal.