Churrigueresque

Churrigueresque, Spanish Rococo style in architecture, historically a late Baroque return to the aesthetics of the earlier Plateresque (q.v.) style. In addition to a plethora of compressed ornament, surfaces bristle with such devices as broken pediments, undulating cornices, reversed volutes, balustrades, stucco shells, and garlands. Restraint was totally abandoned in a conscious effort to overwhelm the spectator. Although the name of the style comes from the family name of José Benito Churriguera, an architect, the Churriguera family members are not the most representative masters of the style.

The “Transparente” (completed 1732), designed by Narciso Tomé for the cathedral in Toledo, is among the masterpieces of Churrigueresque. Tomé created an arrangement in which the Holy Sacrament could be placed within a transparent vessel that was visible from both the high altar and the ambulatory, seen both by the congregation and the pilgrim. Sculpted clouds, gilded rays, a massing of carved angels, and architecturally directed natural light combine to produce a mystical and spiritual effect.

In the sacristy of the Cartuja of Granada (1727–64), Luis de Arévalo and Francisco Manuel Vásquez created an interior that, if not as delicate or as ingenious as that designed by Tomé, is as typically Churrigueresque. The architects drew from other sources for the thick moldings, undulating lines, and repetition of pattern.

In Spanish America tendencies from both the native art of the Americas and the ever-present Mudéjar (Moorish art) have been incorporated, further enriching the style, and the Churrigueresque column, which was shaped like an inverted cone, became the most common motif. The Mexico cathedral (1718), Santa Prisca at Taxco (1758), and San Martín at San Luis Potosí (1764) are excellent examples of Churrigueresque in Mexico.