Continuing the discussion of the Hispano-Flemish movement in the painting of the Iberian peninsula initiated in Volume 4, the fifth volume of Professor Post’s monumental work takes up the manifestations of the movement in Andalusia. It therefore treats the schools of Seville and Cordova in the second half of the fifteenth century and becomes the most important volume yet published in the series, since the consideration of the Cordovan school involves the two greatest primitive painters Spain produced, Master Alfonso and Bermejo. The illustrations include reproductions of every one of Bermejo’s paintings and often of their details as well. The Appendix contains much material additional to the first four volumes.

These volumes inaugurate a general history of Spanish painting that for the first time makes a synthesis of the developments in the different schools of the peninsula, correlates these developments with the evolution of the rest of European art, and treats the various tendencies and all the extant examples in detail. The work includes the pre-Romanesque and Romanesque periods, the Franco-Gothic and Italo-Gothic manners of the fourteenth century, and the “international style” of the first half of the fifteenth century, carrying the reader to about the year 1450 in preparation for subsequent volumes on the more extensively preserved painting of the later Quattrocento. Chandler Post brings to his task the results of many years of research and travel. Not the least of his duties has been the difficult problem of procuring photographs, but he has succeeded in gathering material that enables him to illustrate the volumes copiously and to devote to almost every monument one or two reproductions, which in many instances have never before been published.

These volumes inaugurate a general history of Spanish painting that for the first time makes a synthesis of the developments in the different schools of the peninsula, correlates these developments with the evolution of the rest of European art, and treats the various tendencies and all the extant examples in detail. The work includes the pre-Romanesque and Romanesque periods, the Franco-Gothic and Italo-Gothic manners of the fourteenth century, and the “international style” of the first half of the fifteenth century, carrying the reader to about the year 1450 in preparation for subsequent volumes on the more extensively preserved painting of the later Quattrocento. Chandler Post brings to his task the results of many years of research and travel. Not the least of his duties has been the difficult problem of procuring photographs, but he has succeeded in gathering material that enables him to illustrate the volumes copiously and to devote to almost every monument one or two reproductions, which in many instances have never before been published.

Covering the story of Spanish art from the point where he left it at the beginning of the fifteenth century in his third volume, Professor Post devotes the present fourth volume to a consideration of the Hispano-Flemish period, particularly in Castile and Leon, which began with the union of those two kingdoms under Ferdinand and Isabella toward the end of the fifteenth century. Like the earlier volumes, this is very fully illustrated, with reproductions of masterpieces selected after personal investigation and study in Spain. It will take its place beside its predecessors as a welcome continuation of what will undoubtedly come to be considered the definitive history of painting in the Iberian peninsula.

Following the scheme he laid out in the beginning of this series, Professor Post arrives in the sixth volume of his history of Spanish painting at the School of Valencia in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. He makes the first comprehensive attempt to introduce order into the complicated development of the School at this period and to distinguish its various and successive masters and their work. In this connection he discusses some of the most distinguished and charming artists in primitive Spanish painting, such as Jacomart and Rodrigo de Osona the elder. Like the earlier volumes, this one is lavishly illustrated with reproductions of paintings, a large number of which are in remote villages and have never before been photographed.

The seventh volume of Professor Post’s History of Spanish Painting treats the latest Gothic phases of the Catalan school in the middle and in the second half of the fifteenth century. For the first time the vast pictorial production of Catalonia during this period is ordered and classified, and many new personalities in the school are segregated and defined. The discussion brings Professor Post to one of the most thoroughly charming artists of the European Middle Ages, Jaime Huguet, to whom the longest chapter is devoted. The broad boundaries of the school involve also a treatment of contemporary painting in Majorca and Sardinia. The volume is the largest yet published in the series. The number of illustrations is also larger than that in any previous volume; there are almost four hundred, many of them unknown paintings recently discovered in the process of dismantling churches and private collections in the course of the Spanish civil war.

The seventh volume of Chandler Post’s History of Spanish Painting treats the latest Gothic phases of the Catalan school in the middle and in the second half of the fifteenth century. For the first time the vast pictorial production of Catalonia during this period is ordered and classified, and many new personalities in the school are segregated and defined. The discussion brings Post to one of the most thoroughly charming artists of the European Middle Ages, Jaime Huguet, to whom the longest chapter is devoted. The broad boundaries of the school involve also a treatment of contemporary painting in Majorca and Sardinia. The volume is the largest yet published in the series. The number of illustrations is also larger than that in any previous volume; there are almost four hundred, many of them unknown paintings recently discovered in the process of dismantling churches and private collections in the course of the Spanish civil war.