The Spanish Sculpture Renaissance lecture in Metropolitan Museum
The Spanish sculpture Renaissance lecture given by Metropolitan Museum on Friday evening was really an enriching and inspiring experience to me. It was about both art profession and art history in Europe. It was only a less than an hour lecture, but I really got a lot from it. I found Span’s art history was really interesting, moreover, to some extent, it was a microscope of European’s art history. Sculptors from Italy, Netherlands and other European countries all had come to Span to work. Noticeably, Spanish sculptors’ style was largely affected by Italian sculptors’, especially by Micheal Angelo’s. The figures they created were more symmetrical and muscular than those by norther European’s. Their materials were mainly marble, which was from Italy, and wood, span’s traditional material. An unique technique of Spanish Sculpture was: the sculptors liked to put a gilded cover over their works. And then they mixed the gild with colors , which extremely resembled Span’s Ancient clothes’ material. Another thing I found interesting was how those works were obtained by the museum. Amazingly, all the works were original. They were first possessed by a Paris dealer. Later on, they were sold to an American merchant. That merchant accommodated them in his own house. Before he died, he made a promise that he agreed to contribute those works to the museum. Thus, the public would see. So, all the works(columns, stairs, windows, etc) were taken into parts piece by piece. Then they were transferred into Metropolitan Museum and rebuilt up.