Focus on Arts: Historic exhibition at Duke brings to light a trove of works by artists working under the patronage of a 17th-century king

A grand reign in Spain

DURHAM -- "El Greco to Velazquez," the blockbuster show of masterworks now at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art, brings together more than 50 paintings, sculptures and other pieces, some of which have never been seen in this country. The show, an exceedingly rare opportunity for art audiences in the state and the Southeast, focuses on Spain in the period referenced in the subtitle, "Art during Reign of Philip III."

Philip III ruled Spain from 1598 to 1621, when the 19 artists represented in this art-historically groundbreaking show were active and enjoyed Spanish royal patronage. But the exhibition's key figure in many ways is not the Spanish king, nor is it El Greco, Diego Velazquez or any of the other artists among this group. It is Francisco Gomez de Sandoval y Rojas, the duke of Lerma, who was Phillip III's household administrator and confidant, and the most powerful man in his court, the equivalent of a prime minister. He was the country's leading art patron, owned about 2,000 paintings and exerted a powerful influence on the king's artistic tastes, according to Sarah Schroth.

The Nasher's senior curator, Schroth co-curated the exhibition with Ronni Baer, her counterpart at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which collaborated with the Nasher in organizing the show and served as its inaugural venue earlier this year.

In the more than 20 years Schroth spent researching this period in Spanish art, she determined that other scholars had underestimated art production and other cultural developments during Philip III's reign, and the substantial role the duke played in driving those developments. Her findings are outlined in the exhibition's lavishly illustrated 350-page catalog, in which essays by four other scholars illuminate the era's larger historical and cultural context.

The duke of Lerma's political and artistic influence is aptly emblemized in the show by an equestrian portrait of him that he commmissioned from Peter Paul Rubens, the era's greatest Flemish painter. Impeccably groomed and outfitted in ornately armored finery, the duke cuts a striking figure as he sits erect and looking very much in command astride an equally noble-looking white horse at the center of a roughly 9-by-7-foot canvas. Framed by the arching branches of a nearby tree and windswept clouds in an otherwise opalescent blue sky, he might as well be an emissary from God.

Phillip III is similarly attired in his first formal portrait, which Juan Pantoja de la Cruz painted about three years into Phillip's reign. Holding a general's baton in his right hand, like the duke in Rubens' portrait, the young king nonetheless occupies a very different kind of position. Instead of riding in open country, he stands inside a tent and pulls back its entrance flap, yielding a view of a battlefield in Flanders where Spain achieved an important military victory. Although the king had neither observed the battle nor visited the site, the visual association in the painting served as effective political propaganda, portraying him in an almost godlike relationship to the military action, as if he were secretly overseeing it from an unassailable sanctuary. The setting from which he witnesses--and seemingly controls--the conflict is mysteriously dark except for his own illuminated features and fancy armor.

These images of the two most powerful political figures in early 17th-century Spain epitomize what Schroth calls "a new style of grandeur" in the portrayal of Spanish royalty. They reflect the desires of Philip III and his associates to be viewed as spectacularly rich, magnificent and -- most importantly -- divinely appointed.

Political leaders aren't the exhibition's only portrait subjects. In an age characterized socially by a new sense of individualism and artistically by increasing naturalism, some of the leading artists also painted portraits of distinguished individuals unrelated to the royal family. Among noteworthy examples are Diego Velazquez's austere portrait of a stern-looking Luis de Gongora y Argote, a prominent Spanish poet; and Juan Bautista Maino's Portrait of a Monk. In her catalog essay Schroth identifies the subject of the latter painting--who casts an imposingly judgmental-looking sidelong stare at something outside the frame -- as Fray Pedro de Herrera, a monk (as was Maino himself) and high-ranking theology scholar at the University of Valladolid.

Almost two thirds of the show is devoted to Christian subject matter from a Roman Catholic -- and in some cases distinctively Spanish -- perspective. One of its most resplendently naturalistic religious images -- and, at about 10-by-6 feet, one of its largest paintings -- is Maino's Adoration of the Magi, a crowded, theatrically illuminated scene originally painted as one of four episodes from the life of Christ on a monastery's altarpiece.

Most of the show's depictions of Christ, the saints and divine miracles reflect the strong preference for naturalism and narrative clarity that generally characterize art made in Spain during this era. The most pronounced exceptions are its four religious paintings by El Greco (aka Domeniko Theotokopoulos), known for his more manneristic style. El Greco was already a well-established artist by the time Phillip III ascended the throne, and he died during the king's reign. His works from this late period are characterized by deliberate figural distortions, expressionistic brushwork and -- in the religious paintings -- a mystical sensibility.

Also included in the show are 10 still-life paintings and a selection of period glass and ceramic pieces. Among its many other virtues, the exhibition will introduce audiences in this country to significant works by several artists who remain little known outside Spain, including Eugenio Cajes, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Bartolome Gonzalez, Alejandro de Loarte and Pedro Orrente.

For anyone remotely interested in the history of art, "El Greco to Velazquez" is not to be missed.

■ "El Greco to Velázquez: Art during Reign of Philip III" is on view through Nov. 9 at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art, on the Duke campus at 2001 Campus Drive, at the intersection of Anderson Street in Durham. For more information phone (919) 684-3314 or see information about the show on the museum's Web site, www.nasher.duke.edu/elgreco.