The romantic influence on the nineteenth-century architectural restoration in Spain

Abstract

This research aims to address nineteenth-century architectural conservation from a different perspective, as it explores some of the paradigmatic restorations generated in Spain with an emphasis on the ideological context that gave rise to them: Romanticism. With the advent of Romanticism, the perception of art and heritage completely changed. Man emerged as the only agent capable of judging good and bad, leaving out the mandates of the Art Academies for which good taste could only be achieved in one direction: Classicism. Since then, it is wanted to return to the Middle Ages in every sense and, as a consequence, the restoration of medieval buildings, forgotten until those days, became more and more important. Christian buildings were covered by religious and political content, while Islamic architecture was admired for her exotic and evocative nature. We could travel to the Middle East without leaving Spain. The return to the Middle Ages was not only ideological but also material so as to return to those monuments the alleged original image by means of following ideal parameters. According to E. E. Viollet-Le- Duc, the most important thing was returning to the monument an image that perhaps it never had. In Spain, this theory had its manifestation in the interventions of buildings like the Cathedral of Leon, the church of St. Martin in Frómista (Palencia) or the Alhambra in Granada.