El retablo de Nuestra Señora de la Encina en Arceniega (Álava)

Abstract

The altarpiece of Nuestra Señora de la Encina in Arceniega (Alava) is one of the most significant initiative of the late gothic in the Basque country. Its iconographic programme synthesizes severa! cycles, jointed by the scene of the miraculous apparition that creates the legendary devotion. This project shows a certain duality between the narrative and the dogmatic that coincides with the Vitae and the Meditations. The tabernacle acquires an independent nature. Stylistically, it combines some gothic tradition models with renaissance (art) patterns, it denotes a dependence from the current of Burgos and probably with Dueñas. It reaches the joining between the architecture and the structure to favour the prior liturgical space. This work was probably made about 1515-1520.