Alonso Cano

Alonso Cano , 1601-67, Spanish baroque painter, sculptor, and architect. Cano studied under Pacheco and received painting and architecture commissions from King Philip IV. He was named chief architect of the cathedral at Granada. His architectural masterpiece is the design for the cathedral facade (1667), erected after his death. Cano executed both the sculpture and paintings for his monumental altarpieces and did independent religious pictures and portraits for the cathedral. Examples of his paintings are Descent into Limbo (Los Angeles County Mus.); Way to Calvary (Worcester Art Mus., Mass.); and Portrait of an Ecclesiastic (Hispanic Society of America, New York City). His sculptures, including statues of saints in Granada Cathedral, were executed with vigor and sensitivity.

Bibliography: See study by H. E. Wethey (1955).

Cano, Alonso (1601–67). Spanish painter and architect. During the 1620s he assisted his father with the design of altar-pieces, but his west front of Granada Cathedral (from 1667) is stupendous, recalling arched Romanesque fronts (e.g. Lincoln Cathedral). Consisting of three huge arches, it does not employ the Orders, but rather species of pilasters, panels, and layers of planes.

Bibliography

Kubler & and Soria (1959);
Rosenthal (1961)