Traditionally it has been considered an exclusively Spanish style (or current), with Spanish understood as the territories that were in the power of the Crown between the 15th and 17th centuries. However, in the middle of the century this geographical limitation was called into question under the arguments of various authors, especially Camón Aznar (in 1945) and Rosenthal (in 1958), who by defining plateresque generically as a unitary amalgam of found elements (Gothic, Muslim, Renaissance), the former stopped considering it a style to include it in the Renaissance, and the latter noted its association with certain buildings from other European countries, mainly France and Portugal, but also in Germany and others.[4][6][10]​.

This problem highlights the inappropriateness of the name Plateresco and its classification as a style, leading us to consider it a period of confusion and transition between styles, characterized by decorative profusion as architects were not able to develop new spatial or structural trends. Sometimes, this is even reduced to treating Plateresque as the replacement of Gothic decoration by Italian grotesques of Serlian inspiration.[11]​.

Whatever the thesis, however, Plateresque or Proto-Renaissance is accepted as an art that responded to the demands of Spain, a country that had just concluded the Reconquista and arrived in America, beginning to perceive its riches, and entered a spiral of large constructions that we consider monuments today.

Spanish plateresque

The altarpiece facades were typical, made as if they were careful works of goldsmithing, prolifically decorated. The decoration, although it obtained various inspirations, was fundamentally vegetal, although it also had a profusion of medallions, heraldic elements and animal figurations, among others. There is also a wealth of materials: gold plates on crests and finials, vases, etc. At the end of the first third of the century, greater polychromes are observed and historically based crestings and balustrades appear, as well as more elaborate decoration.[12]​.

The extension of the decoration to all architectural surfaces results in the creation of new surfaces and subspaces, fundamentally decorative to the place where they are located, which in turn are profusely ornamented, such as niches, niches and aedicules.[13]​.

Likewise, Italian elements were progressively included as decoration: pillows, classical capitals, Roman arches and, above all, grotesques.[14]​.

The decoration used had specific meanings, and could not be read only descriptively. Thus, laurels, war motifs and an abundance of horns were placed in the homes of prominent military personnel. For this reason, the staging of Greek and Roman fables abstracted humanist ideals, so decorative logic became a means to express and disseminate Renaissance ideas.[13]​.

Certain spatial aspects were also implemented and preferred. In this way, open box caustral stairs were built.[15]​ However, there were hardly any spatial modifications with respect to the Gothic.

American Plateresque

In America, especially in modern-day Mexico, certain native cultures were in artistic phases that can be considered baroque when the Spanish brought Plateresque with them. This mixed symbiotically with local traditions, so that Gothic architecture did not reach America itself, but through a Plateresque that quickly changed first with indigenous influences and then with African ones, evolving into what was called an American Baroque.[16]​.

Contenido

El plateresco sigue la línea del estilo Isabel, donde los elementos decorativos de tradiciones ibéricas e italianizantes forman complejos ornamentos que se superponen a las estructuras góticas. Posteriormente se puede hablar de un Plateresco que conserva las formas góticas como base hasta 1530. Después de esa fecha, aunque continúan utilizándose y evolucionando los ornamentos platerescos, éstos pasan a formar parte de una arquitectura que ya comienza a asumir las ideas renacentistas. En 1563, con el comienzo de la construcción del monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, la arquitectura renacentista se depura gracias a las intervenciones de Juan de Herrera, dando fin al esplendor y la extensión del plateresco en la península ibérica.[4]​ En México sin embargo no se olvidó, dando lugar a un neoplateresco en el siglo .

En cualquier caso el plateresco, considerado o no como estilo y exclusivamente español o por otro lado europeo, representa la transición entre los estilos gótico y renacentista.

Elizabeth style (15th century)

In the century, a tendency to decorate Castilian architecture with flamboyant motifs, from Flanders, and Islamic motifs began to develop in the Crown of Castile, which received the name Elizabethan style because most of the commissions came from Isabel the Catholic. These ornaments, which became progressively more complex, did not influence the internal structure of the buildings.

Something similar happened around the same time in Portugal, in what was called the Manueline style.

Plateresque Gothic (late 15th century-1530)

At the end of the century, Gothic buildings began to be masked, especially with grotesques, without initially changing their spaces or structures. This process began when the Renaissance elements arrived in Spain, which were applied by copying them, figuratively, but without understanding them; that is, without breaking away from medieval ideas and forms.

In fact, many of the Plateresque buildings were already built, so only layers of Renaissance ornamentation were added, especially around the openings (windows and doors), and in general, with exceptions, to any non-tectonic element.[13]​.

Although the name Plateresque is often applied to architecture, the act of superimposing new Renaissance elements on forms governed by medieval parameters is also visible in Spanish painting and sculpture of the time.[5]​.

Plateresque Renaissance (1530-1560)

Period in which the Renaissance had already been fully assumed in the Iberian Peninsula, although it had not yet reached its maximum expression. This will be the modifications by Juan de Herrera and Felipe II in the plans of the monastery of El Escorial, whose construction began in 1563. At this time the decoration, although profuse, follows completely Italianate parameters and is applied to constructions designed according to Renaissance logic.

Monterrey style (19th century and first third of the 20th century)

In the century the Monterrey style appeared - the name given to the palace of Monterrey (Salamanca) "Palacio de Monterrey (Salamanca)") -, Spanish or Neoplateresque style, a historicism centered on Plateresque, understanding this as a national style.[17]​.

The style survived until the first decades of the century, immersed in national and regional revivals, enormously propagated although hardly accepted, some examples being found on the Gran Vía in Madrid.[18]​[19]​.

In Mexico, a new expression of Plateresque was also produced, the success of which spread to the southwest of the United States, and which began in the first half of the century.[20] This Neoplateresque should not be confused with that of Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the so-called Monterrey style.

Architectures and other plateresque works

In America:

The name Plateresque refers to the profession of silversmith. The Sevillian historian Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga used it for the first time in the century, applying it to the description of the sacristy of the cathedral of Seville[8]​ in the third volume of his Anales, some authors[2][3]​ have erroneously linked such adjective with the Royal chapel, which Ortiz de Zúñiga mentions in his work later, in the fourth volume.[9]​.

Traditionally it has been considered an exclusively Spanish style (or current), with Spanish understood as the territories that were in the power of the Crown between the 15th and 17th centuries. However, in the middle of the century this geographical limitation was called into question under the arguments of various authors, especially Camón Aznar (in 1945) and Rosenthal (in 1958), who by defining plateresque generically as a unitary amalgam of found elements (Gothic, Muslim, Renaissance), the former stopped considering it a style to include it in the Renaissance, and the latter noted its association with certain buildings from other European countries, mainly France and Portugal, but also in Germany and others.[4][6][10]​.

This problem highlights the inappropriateness of the name Plateresco and its classification as a style, leading us to consider it a period of confusion and transition between styles, characterized by decorative profusion as architects were not able to develop new spatial or structural trends. Sometimes, this is even reduced to treating Plateresque as the replacement of Gothic decoration by Italian grotesques of Serlian inspiration.[11]​.

Whatever the thesis, however, Plateresque or Proto-Renaissance is accepted as an art that responded to the demands of Spain, a country that had just concluded the Reconquista and arrived in America, beginning to perceive its riches, and entered a spiral of large constructions that we consider monuments today.

Spanish plateresque

The altarpiece facades were typical, made as if they were careful works of goldsmithing, prolifically decorated. The decoration, although it obtained various inspirations, was fundamentally vegetal, although it also had a profusion of medallions, heraldic elements and animal figurations, among others. There is also a wealth of materials: gold plates on crests and finials, vases, etc. At the end of the first third of the century, greater polychromes are observed and historically based crestings and balustrades appear, as well as more elaborate decoration.[12]​.

The extension of the decoration to all architectural surfaces results in the creation of new surfaces and subspaces, fundamentally decorative to the place where they are located, which in turn are profusely ornamented, such as niches, niches and aedicules.[13]​.

Likewise, Italian elements were progressively included as decoration: pillows, classical capitals, Roman arches and, above all, grotesques.[14]​.

The decoration used had specific meanings, and could not be read only descriptively. Thus, laurels, war motifs and an abundance of horns were placed in the homes of prominent military personnel. For this reason, the staging of Greek and Roman fables abstracted humanist ideals, so decorative logic became a means to express and disseminate Renaissance ideas.[13]​.

Certain spatial aspects were also implemented and preferred. In this way, open box caustral stairs were built.[15]​ However, there were hardly any spatial modifications with respect to the Gothic.

American Plateresque

In America, especially in modern-day Mexico, certain native cultures were in artistic phases that can be considered baroque when the Spanish brought Plateresque with them. This mixed symbiotically with local traditions, so that Gothic architecture did not reach America itself, but through a Plateresque that quickly changed first with indigenous influences and then with African ones, evolving into what was called an American Baroque.[16]​.

Contenido

El plateresco sigue la línea del estilo Isabel, donde los elementos decorativos de tradiciones ibéricas e italianizantes forman complejos ornamentos que se superponen a las estructuras góticas. Posteriormente se puede hablar de un Plateresco que conserva las formas góticas como base hasta 1530. Después de esa fecha, aunque continúan utilizándose y evolucionando los ornamentos platerescos, éstos pasan a formar parte de una arquitectura que ya comienza a asumir las ideas renacentistas. En 1563, con el comienzo de la construcción del monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, la arquitectura renacentista se depura gracias a las intervenciones de Juan de Herrera, dando fin al esplendor y la extensión del plateresco en la península ibérica.[4]​ En México sin embargo no se olvidó, dando lugar a un neoplateresco en el siglo .

En cualquier caso el plateresco, considerado o no como estilo y exclusivamente español o por otro lado europeo, representa la transición entre los estilos gótico y renacentista.

Elizabeth style (15th century)

In the century, a tendency to decorate Castilian architecture with flamboyant motifs, from Flanders, and Islamic motifs began to develop in the Crown of Castile, which received the name Elizabethan style because most of the commissions came from Isabel the Catholic. These ornaments, which became progressively more complex, did not influence the internal structure of the buildings.

Something similar happened around the same time in Portugal, in what was called the Manueline style.

Plateresque Gothic (late 15th century-1530)

At the end of the century, Gothic buildings began to be masked, especially with grotesques, without initially changing their spaces or structures. This process began when the Renaissance elements arrived in Spain, which were applied by copying them, figuratively, but without understanding them; that is, without breaking away from medieval ideas and forms.

In fact, many of the Plateresque buildings were already built, so only layers of Renaissance ornamentation were added, especially around the openings (windows and doors), and in general, with exceptions, to any non-tectonic element.[13]​.

Although the name Plateresque is often applied to architecture, the act of superimposing new Renaissance elements on forms governed by medieval parameters is also visible in Spanish painting and sculpture of the time.[5]​.

Plateresque Renaissance (1530-1560)

Period in which the Renaissance had already been fully assumed in the Iberian Peninsula, although it had not yet reached its maximum expression. This will be the modifications by Juan de Herrera and Felipe II in the plans of the monastery of El Escorial, whose construction began in 1563. At this time the decoration, although profuse, follows completely Italianate parameters and is applied to constructions designed according to Renaissance logic.

Monterrey style (19th century and first third of the 20th century)

In the century the Monterrey style appeared - the name given to the palace of Monterrey (Salamanca) "Palacio de Monterrey (Salamanca)") -, Spanish or Neoplateresque style, a historicism centered on Plateresque, understanding this as a national style.[17]​.

The style survived until the first decades of the century, immersed in national and regional revivals, enormously propagated although hardly accepted, some examples being found on the Gran Vía in Madrid.[18]​[19]​.

In Mexico, a new expression of Plateresque was also produced, the success of which spread to the southwest of the United States, and which began in the first half of the century.[20] This Neoplateresque should not be confused with that of Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the so-called Monterrey style.

Architectures and other plateresque works

In America: