At any rate when these monarchs had extended their power over Spain, the Empire, Holland, Naples, Burgundy and America, Renaissance architecture in Spain entered, quite abruptly, its second phase. Monumental building succeeded ornamental. Architecture became once more a form-giving art. Buildings seem no longer to have been addressed to the social spirit of man, to seek to charm, to become a pleasing amenity in civic and ecclesiastical life; rather they seem to have been intended to over awe, to express in plastic form the energy and might of a stupen dous Government. The palace built by Charles V. at Granada is a fine example of this political architecture. A part of the Alham bra was destroyed to make room for it. One regrets, of course, the oriental palace, full of sensuous charm and aristocratic loveli ness, but the newer palace is not less beautiful. Still more impres sive is the great Escorial (1560-84), a vast monastery built around a votive church and a mausoleum. This granite pile, which meas ures 675 ft. by 53o ft., achieves a majestic and awe-inspiring char acter by sheer size and weight. The grandeur and consistency of the remarkably unified design, the dramatic setting against the moun tains and above the plain of Madrid, make of this monument a sublime symbol of the union of Spanish power and Catholic faith. The interior of the great cathedral of Granada, the Lonja, or exchange of Seville, and the hospital of San Juan Bautista, Toledo, are other examples of this second phase of the Spanish Renaissance, which are not unworthy of comparison with the best work of contemporary Italy. This phase did not last long beyond the close of the i6th century. (See BAROQUE ARCHI TECTURE.) Churrigueresque.—An architecture more congenial to the artistic spirit of Spain and derived from that of Fontana and Borromini appeared in the early part of the i 7th century. It is characterized by a free plastic handling of masses, a broken or undulating skyline, an irregular, capricious distribution of light and shade, and a vast profusion of ornament ; structure, geometric form and classic precedent are smothered under a lavish encrusta tion of luxuriant detail. At times this detail recalls that of the Plateresque ; more often it differs from it altogether. It is bolder
with far greater depths of broken shadow and vigorous projec tions; it is more fluid, the forms and planes melting into each other in rounded forms and an intricacy of curved lines; and there is lacking altogether the delicacy of line and shadow and the exquisite refinement in modelling that give distinction to the plateresque. The joyousness, the youth, of the early 16th cen tury was replaced by a self-conscious and sophisticated spirit. Architecture was not, as in the Plateresque, a source of direct sensuous enjoyment; it was a language that attempted to trans late passion and mysticism into plastic forms. The vocabulary of this new language is like that of Baroque Italy : there is the same prodigal use of volutes and consoles, of broken and scrolled pediments, of twisted columns, of reversed balusters and of elabo rately modelled finials. The cartouche, enmeshed in a fantastic frame of volutes and scrolls, and the human figure, emotionally rendered and set in a niche, are characteristic forms of ornament, and there is a lavish abundance of flowers, of modelled draperies, shells and festoons, often executed (in an altar or retablo) in onyx, lapis lazuli, bronze or some other richly coloured material.
This Baroque style in Spain is often called the Churrigueresque, from the name of its most successful practitioner, Jose Churri guera. It reaches its fullest development in altar-pieces and in the decoration of doorways. The west front of the Cathedral of Marcia, although not completed until the 18th century, is a char acteristic example of the Spanish Baroque.