How the Mudéjar style influenced Florentine painter, Gherardo Starnina’s palette of vivid colors.
Though comparable in quality to Chinese silks, silk textiles from Spain were dyed with more vivid colors.
Bright dye and pigment colorants were developed by Iberian colorists and artisans who continued to diversify the traditional practices of Phoenician dye makers. Their ancestors were Phoenicians who had retreated to the Iberian Peninsula after the Punic Wars and the fall of Carthage about 150 BCE. There they continued to produce and distribute dye stuffs; and to control the worldwide distribution of the royal color, Tyrian purple (snails).
In the 8th century, Muslim armies conquered the Iberian Peninsula and took over the dye industry. They sited a new city where silkworms could thrive on a steady diet of leaves from the white mulberry trees. The new Caliphate of Cordoba was soon their silk capital. Over time, Europeans called the vibrant silk fabrics from Cordoba “exotic.”
Whether called Spain, Hispania or Al-Andalus, the Iberian Peninsula was the shifting frontier between Christian and Muslim armies. The territory was considered “the wild west.” For Christian armies, the provinces served as rallying places for their 700-year-long campaign to reclaim the entire peninsula from Muslim occupation. Only the northernmost provinces of Asturias and León were brought back under Christian control by the 10th century.
As both a borderland and a battleground between two competing cultures and their armies, the Iberian Peninsula was kept in balance by a stable transportation network and profitable trade with customers throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.
Near the geographic center of the Peninsula, Toledo was already an ancient city before Roman colonization. And after, Toledo was the capital of the Visigothic kingdom before being conquered by Muslim armies, who were then overtaken by Christian armies in the late 11th century.
The region’s risky, yet thriving economy attracted a multi-ethnic mix of bohemians, intellectuals, architects, artists, and merchants, who were willing to take the risk and set up their shops in the region’s ancient trading towns. The people of the borderlands were constantly tested by varying degrees of raging hostility and reasonable tolerance.
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish designers, architects, artists, and artisans lived, collaborated, and worked side by side. The art and architecture of Toledo still display the integration of three cultures. Over time, different aspects of their cultural aesthetics fused into a new art movement, the Mudejar art style.
The name “Mudéjar” (“remained”) was given most often to Muslim architects and artisans who remained behind in the provinces while Christian armies occupied the borderlands. Their accomplished skills in architecture and construction enticed many Christian rulers to entice them to stay. Muslims could practice their religious rites and customs like breaks from work for time to pray.
Muslim designers, architects, artists and artisans also remained because there were good jobs available due to demand. Churches, cloisters, and chapels were under construction along the major pilgrimage routes from European cities to Christian religious sites. By the 12thC, over a quarter million pilgrims a year walked all or parts of the Camino de Santiago along the way toward the tomb of St. James. Those who walked the 500 miles received a plenary indulgence, which was essentially a free “get-out-of-hell” card.
There were many well-established routes for pilgrims, penitents, and their companions who generated constant consumer foot traffic from early spring until late fall. Pilgrims had to sleep and eat, but most importantly, they were looking for a world-class religious experience. The new facilities were designed to provide hospitality for those seeking a religious experience like St. Paul on the road to Damascus; and for those who just needed a vacation, a nice one with good intentions. Local makers and merchants, politicians, and accountants underwrote the construction of fabulous churches and hostels to host them.
The “Mudéjar” style was a synthetic art form like Art Nouveau. The influence of Mudéjar design can be seen in churches along the Camino de Santiago route, including in cities of Teruel and Zaragoza. Some of the earliest instances of Mudéjar architecture can be found in Sahagún about halfway from the beginning of the pilgrimage route in St. Jean Pied de Port in France and Santiago de Compostela near the Atlantic coast of Spain.
At the convergence of Islamic architecture and Christian iconography, the Mudéjar art style was first used to create a new sense of wonder. Using common construction materials, artisans built multi-lobed horseshoe-shaped arches, intricately carved stucco vaults, and wooden roofing. Artisans displayed a renewed enthusiasm for the decorative qualities of brickwork in these Christian churches made on the monumental scale of Islamic architecture.
Medieval Christian churches were constructed like auditoriums to seat a few hundred to a few thousand people who gathered for spiritual renewal and to hear new music performed by local performers or traveling troupes. While Christian art-making traditions were based on storytelling, Islamic Medieval art traditions were based on creating a visual experience of wow. How would you feel if you woke up in heaven?
Satisfied pilgrims returned home with souvenirs, many of which were made by Mudéjar artisans. The scallop shell, produced in multiple media, was the Christian symbol that marked the Way of St. James. Pilgrims also returned home with brightly colored banners, scarves, and scapulars (cloth medallions), golden rosaries, (metal) medallions, and reliquaries which they showed off and shared as gifts from far-away places. The art-making business in Spain was booming. Florentine painters could always find work regardless of their reputation.
According to the Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari, Gherardo di Jacopo Starnina (1364 – 1413) was a talented young painter, accused of cultivating an unsavory character. He may have apprenticed with renowned fresco painter Antonio Veneziano. Vasari wrote that Starnina had the potential and ability to master painting, but instead, he ruined his reputation and lost all opportunities in Florence. Friends, associates, and guild members urged him to leave and pull his life together. Finally, he was broke and accepted banishment to the Iberian Peninsula, to the frontier for an extended stay about 1380.
Starnina spent his years in exile mostly in Toledo under the patronage of Juan I of Castile. After a successful ten-year career as a court painter, Starnina completed his rehabilitation and returned to Florence, where he introduced Mudéjar style methods and materials. Unavoidably influenced by Mudéjar art and architecture, Starnina broke through the Medieval palette of muted colors and picked up a palette of colors with higher chroma to generate dynamism in his painting. His brightly colored paintings were described as “exotic.”
For the rest of his career in Florence, he was recognized as one of the best painters of his generation. The most noted of Starnina’s students was Masolino da Panicale, who was an excellent goldsmith; afterwards, a painter in association with Masaccio.
After the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of Muslims in 1492, Mudéjar art style was referred to as “Moorish.” In the 19th century, the style informed “Orientalism.” Jean-Léon Gérôme was among the famous French painters who found a good market for colonial nostalgia.
Captions: