Churrigueresque

Churrigueresque refers to a Spanish Baroque style of elaborate sculptural architectural ornament which emerged as a manner of stucco decoration in Spain in the late 17th century and was used up to about 1750, marked by extreme, expressive and florid decorative detailing, normally found above the entrance on the main facade of a building.

Definition
The term churrigueresco comes from the surname Churriguera. The Churriguera were a family of baroque architects whose work was characterized because it presented a ornate decoration. By extension, the term has been used to refer to the Spanish baroque of the first third of the eighteenth century. All those architectures that possessed a marked movement and a variegated ornamentation were understood by churriguerescas, especially in the altarpieces.

This style is a variant of the Baroque style that has more ornamentation. They were constructions of ephemeral altarpieces and also in the architectonic thing.

The first of the Churrigueras was José de Churriguera (1665-1725), who trained as an assembler of altarpieces, elaborating some very important ones for various temples in Salamanca, Madrid, Valladolid and other Spanish cities. Some have disappeared and currently only some traces are preserved.

On the other hand Francisco de la Maza notes that the term churrigueresco is not only used for the baroque with stipes, because "many works or almost all the works with common pilasters very ornamented and that correspond, in Spain, from 1689 to 1730, and in Mexico from 1725 to 1780, more or less, since one is the sense of will of form that presides over these works ».

Therefore the Churrigueresque is not an architectural style, it is rather a sculptural and decorative style.

characteristics
Although the stipe is characterized by representing a geometric scheme of the human body:

«The capital is the head; the cube or bulbous section is the chest; the narrowing between the cube and the upper part of the inverted pyramid would be the waist; the pyramid itself clearly makes the figure of hips and legs, narrowing as it descends to the feet ».

Manuel González Galván points out that this abstraction is due to a frank and so humanistic symbolism or more than Greece itself, where the Doric was considered, robust and sober, as representative of the masculine and the Ionic, more slender and curved, of the feminine . The Romans came to present it sexed but the baroque pilaster, in its asexual and rigorous abstraction, is closer to the human than those interpretations made about the classic. But for Francisco de la Maza this points to him as part of the Latin influence because it is based on the idea that it coincides with the sensitivity of pre-Columbian art, sculptural par excellence and with the sensibility of the Mexican indigenous.

Origins
Named after the architect and sculptor, José Benito de Churriguera (1665–1725), who was born in Madrid of a Catalan family (originally named Xoriguera), and who worked primarily in Madrid and Salamanca, the origins of the style are said to go back to an architect and sculptor named Alonso Cano, who designed the facade of the cathedral at Granada, in 1667.

A distant, early 15th century precursor of the highly elaborate Churrigueresque style can be found in the Lombard Charterhouse of Pavia, yet the sculpture-encrusted facade still has the Italianate appeal to rational narrative. Churrigueresque appeals to the proliferative geometry, and has a more likely origin in the Moorish or Mudéjar architecture that still remained through south and central Spain. The interior stucco roofs of, for example the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Córdoba, Spain, flourish with detail and ornamentation.

Development
The development of the style passed through three phases. Between 1680 and 1720, the Churriguera popularized Guarino Guarini's blend of Solomonic columns and composite order, known as "supreme order". Between 1720 and 1760, the Churrigueresque column, or estipite, in the shape of an inverted cone or obelisk, was established as a central element of ornamental decoration. The years from 1760 to 1780 saw a gradual shift of interest away from twisted movement and excessive ornamentation towards Neoclassical balance and sobriety.

Among the highlights of the style, interiors of the Granada Charterhouse offer some of the most impressive combinations of space and light in 18th-century Europe. Integrating sculpture and architecture even more radically, Narciso Tomé achieved striking chiaroscuro effects in his Transparente for the Toledo Cathedral. Perhaps the most visually intoxicating form of the style was Mexican Churrigueresque, practised in the mid-18th century by Lorenzo Rodriguez, whose masterpiece is the Sagrario Metropolitano (1749–69) in Mexico City, New Spain.

Spain
The first of the Churriguera was José Benito de Churriguera (1665-1725), who trained as a joiner of altarpieces, drawing some very important for various churches of Salamanca, Madrid, Valladolid and other cities in Spain. Some in Spain have gone and some remain only a sites:

Altarpiece of Convent of San Esteban in Salamanca.
Town of Nuevo Baztán (Church of san Francisco Javier and Goyeneche Palace).
Choir of the New Cathedral of Salamanca.
Plaza Mayor of Salamanca.
Capilla de la Vera Cruz, in Salamanca.
College of Calatrava, in Salamanca.
Palace of San Telmo, in Seville.

Mexico
In Mexico, the Cathedral Basilica of Zacatecas, Zacatecas, capital of Zacatecas state, and the Templo de Santa Prisca, located in Taxco, Guerrero state are considered as masterpieces of Churrigueresque style. The building of Parroquia Antigua in Salamanca, Guanajuato, founded on August 24, 1603, was completed in the year 1690, and the Churrigueresque facade in 1740. The altarpiece of the church of San Francisco Javier (National Museum of Viceroyalty) in Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico is also considered, along with its facade, one of the most important baroque churrigueresque works created by the Jesuits in New Spain. The Altar de los Reyes of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral and the facades of the Sagrario Metropolitano, which is attached to the same Cathedral, are also representatives of the style.

The Philippines
It was late introduced in the Philippines. The best examples were the San Juan de dios Hospital in Intramuros, Daraga Church in Albay, and Tigbauan Church in Iloilo.

Churrigueresque revival
The Churrigueresque decorative style was used in Spanish Colonial architecture in the New World colonial town's important buildings. The style enjoyed a resurgence after architect Bertram Goodhue and Carleton Winslow Sr. studied Spanish Colonial Churrigueresque and Plateresque ornament in Mexico, using it in designing the 1915 Panama-California Exposition buildings at Balboa Park in San Diego, California. The Exposition popularized its use in Spanish Colonial Revival architecture styles in the United States.

Source From Wikipedia