page_title: Baroque
section_title: Spanish Baroque
hierarchical_section_title: Baroque / Architecture: origins and characteristics / Spanish Baroque
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Détail de la façade principale du Palais de San Telmo, aujourd'hui siège de la présidence de la Junte d'Andalousie, Séville, Espagne.English: Detail of the main facade of the Palace of San Telmo, nowadays the seat of the presidency of the Andalusian Autonomous Government (Junta de Andalucia), Seville, Spain.
context_page_description: The Baroque is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1740s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including the Iberian Peninsula it continued, together with new styles, until the first decade of the 1800s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well.
  The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany and Russia. By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and Central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.
  In the decorative arts there is an excess of ornamentation.
context_section_description: The Catholic Church in Spain, and particularly the Jesuits, were the driving force of Spanish Baroque architecture.  The first major work in this style was the San Isidro Chapel in Madrid, begun in 1643 by Pedro de la Torre.  It contrasted an extreme richness of ornament on the exterior with simplicity in the interior, divided into multiple spaces and using effects of light to create a sense of mystery.  The Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela was modernized with a series of Baroque additions beginning at the end of the 17th century, starting with a highly ornate bell tower (1680), then flanked by two even taller and more ornate towers, called the Obradorio, added between 1738 and 1750 by Fernando de Casas Novoa. Another landmark of the Spanish Baroque is the chapel tower of the Palace of San Telmo in Seville by Leonardo de Figueroa.
  Granada had only been liberated from the Moors in the 15th century, and had its own distinct variety of Baroque.  The painter, sculptor and architect Alonso Cano designed the Baroque interior of Granada Cathedral between 1652 and his death in 1657.  It features dramatic contrasts of the massive white columns and gold decor.
  The most ornamental and lavishly decorated architecture of the Spanish Baroque is called Churrigueresque style, named after the brothers Churriguera, who worked primarily in Salamanca and Madrid. Their works include the buildings on the city's main square, the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca (1729). This highly ornamental Baroque style was very influential in many churches and cathedrals built by the Spanish in the Americas.
  Other notable Spanish baroque architects of the late Baroque include Pedro de Ribera, a pupil of Churriguera, who designed the Royal Hospice of San Fernando in Madrid, and Narciso Tomé, who designed the celebrated El Transparente altarpiece at Toledo Cathedral (1729–32) which gives the illusion, in certain light, of floating upwards.
  The architects of the Spanish Baroque had an effect far beyond Spain;  their work was highly influential in the churches built in the Spanish colonies in Latin America and the Philippines. The Church built by the Jesuits for a college in Tepotzotlán, with its ornate Baroque facade and tower, is a good example.
caption: The Palace of San Telmo from Seville (1682)
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