Santiago de Compostela en la crisis del cambio de siglo (1699-1716). A propósito de un “barroco aportuguesado"

Abstract

It is clear that crises in a “the system of art”, if they can be well-controlled by the system, are signs of vitality, rather than exhaustion. Therefore, crisis should be identified simply with “change”. What then are the conditions which give rise to a situation of this kind? In Santiago de Compostela in the 1700s, particularly in the field of the gilt woodwork and baroque retables, there was a turning point in the “field of production” and a change of repertoire, promoted by the most dynamic artistic and religious circles, led by Domingo de Andrade; a situation that correlates with the arrival to Santiago de Compostela of woodcarving sculptors —José y Ciprián Domínguez Bugarín, Francisco de Castro Canseco— from southern Galicia. Perhaps this wood carving and retables’s developments have been the manifestation of a new “taste” or aesthetic sensibility we know as the Baroque “aportuguesado”.