108. Bible: Blanche of Castille
and King Louis IX of France
and Author Dictating to a Scribe, 1226-1234.
Ink, tempera and gold leaf on vellum paper, 38 x 26.6 cm.
The Pierpont Morgan Library,
New York (United States).
Gothic Painting in Spain
Mostly the kingdom of Aragon, but also Catalonia, developed an intense activity in these areas of art. From the altarpieces, which were mostly painted against a golden background, and the up to 15m high triptychs, to the paintings that were often influenced by Italian, French or Flemish artists, these artworks lay the foundation for Spanish painting.
Sculpture also developed in this era and became evermore delicate and elaborate. The posture of sculptures gradually lost its stiffness and led to natural expression.
Illuminated Books
Illuminated books were created for the nobility, higher clergy and aspiring bourgeois financiers and merchants. They were true gems that competed with the finest jewellery in virtuosity and price. Widespread illiteracy and the high cost of these unique manuscripts limited the painters’ audience. However, the elitism inherent in miniatures did not lead to an ossified technique. To the contrary, once book production became mainly the business of city craftsmen, new innovations in painting technology were made more frequently; they would influence all painting of its time. The acquisition of a new artistic language – the design of space, the rendering of mass, movement and volume – began in the workshops of the miniaturists. The illustrative function of miniatures demanded narrative: the painter not only had to depict the spatial, but also the temporal. Miniature played an important role in the emergence of genres, primarily landscapes and portraits. One painter after another introduced something new to the drawing, the colouring and the decorative motifs by including increasingly intense observations of daily life.
Like the objects of the craft industry, the illustrated book is one of the most mobile art forms. Merchants brought illuminated books back from their journeys along with other goods. Princesses, who were married abroad, had works by some of the finest illustrators in their dowries. Sons, who received new estates, took inherited books with them. Books were also trophies of war.