Sacred geometry in a Renaissance ceiling from Spain
3 Video Views·Jul 18, 2025
A conversation with Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker below a mudéjar-style ceiling, 16th century, carved, painted, and gilded wood, 28 x 33 ft., Spain (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
We're in the Islamic galleries
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
and my neck is starting to get sore
because we've spent a good deal of time
looking up at this magnificent ceiling.
We're looking at what's called an artesanado ceiling
from Spain in the 16th century.
It's a type of ceiling that combines sculpture
and painting and woodworking
to create this beautiful, geometrically designed ceiling.
It's like a three-dimensional carpet.
It's incredibly complex.
It's a geometry that's gone wild.
This artesanado ceiling was common
in late medieval and Renaissance Spain.
And it's important to remember
that when the ceiling was new,
it would have been much brighter than it is now.
We're in a room with subdued lighting,
but the paint itself has faded.
Now, this ceiling is sometimes called the mudéjar ceiling,
and that word mudéjar can mean two different things.
It can refer to artists, or it can refer to the style.
When it's referring to the artist,
it's referring to Muslim artists who remained in Spain
after the Christian reconquest
and who never convert to Christianity,
but who continue to work as carvers, as painters,
as other types of artisans.
The other meaning of the term mudéjar
is referring to the style of the ceilings,
this Islamic-inspired style that becomes so prevalent
across the Iberian Peninsula,
where we see things like vegetal forms
and complex geometric patterning.
It's worth remembering that in 1492,
Ferdinand and Isabella exiled Jews and Muslims from Spain,
but before that, there had been a long campaign by Christians
to push Muslims out of the peninsula.
In 711, you have the takeover
of much of the Iberian Peninsula by Muslim forces.
This also then kicks off what's known as the reconquest,
which was Christian kingdoms trying to reconquer
the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims,
and so from 711 until 1492,
you have many different campaigns
as the Iberian Peninsula is constantly shifting
in terms of who's in control.
But what's fascinating is that we're seeing a ceiling
that is clearly coming out of the Islamic tradition,
but is then adopted within a Christian context.
In fact, ceilings like this were common in churches.
Ceilings like this were incredibly common
across medieval and Renaissance Spain,
so much so that when the Spaniards go to the Americas
and conquer much of what we today call Latin America,
it's very common to see this type of ceiling
brought and put into churches there as well.
Because its geometry is so overwhelming and so beautiful,
but also so complex that it requires careful looking.
The principal motif seems to be a starburst,
but when you look closely,
those starbursts are actually constructed by laths,
that is, planks of wood, which are woven together,
creating an unexpected sense of depth
since one piece of the lath might go over
and then under other sections.
We don't know where this was originally installed,
but we do know that when it was created,
it would have had perfect mathematical harmony.
So all of this complex geometric patterning
was actually done in a way
where mathematically it was so precise
so as to create not just a beautiful
and intricate abstract pattern,
but the sense of sacred geometry.
Well, we are looking up at a ceiling
and we're reminded of the ideal geometry of the heavens.
And this is not just carved, as I mentioned earlier,
but we also have elements of the wood
that have been painted.
We are seeing blues and reds,
and we also have gilding,
so gold is applied to the wood as well.
And it reminds us of the kind of geometries
that we would see in tile work or in carpets.
The ceiling should not be seen in isolation,
but just one part of a larger architectural ensemble.
And something that's so remarkable about this ceiling
is it's a great reminder that the Renaissance world
was this incredibly complex and dynamic transcultural world
where we have cross-cultural exchanges
happening all the time.
Because this is not something
that relates to Renaissance naturalism,
this is not oil painting on a canvas,
this is something that's unexpected.
One of the aspects of the ceiling
that is most obviously coming out of the Islamic tradition
can be found in the four corners.
This is a motif which is known as Muqarnas.
It's an architectural motif
that is commonly found in the Islamic world
and is made of the repetition of a single unit
that cascades down and creates a transition
from the complex geometry of the ceiling
to the corner of the room.
And this is such a complex ceiling
that's already a feast for the eyes
that it could be easy to overlook the frieze
that's at the bottom of the ceiling.
And here we have a very different type of ornamentation.
We have scrolling vines, we have animals.
It looks very different than the mathematical harmony
that we're finding on the ceiling itself.
Because the ceiling is pitched,
almost as if we were looking at the top of a tent,
there is an emphasis on the dimensionality of that space
but also of the intricacy of the carving
because the light is reaching each of these panels
at different angles, almost like the facets of a gem.
And I mentioned earlier the issue of transculturalism here.
Where that issue becomes important again
is this ceiling was actually purchased
from somewhere in Spain by William Randolph Hearst
for Hearst Castle in San Simeon in California.
Hearst was a very wealthy newspaper magnate.
When it was purchased, it was actually expanded.
So parts of the ceiling are original
and parts of it were actually extensions
that were created to look like the original
so that it would fit into one of the ceilings
at Hearst Castle.
We don't think the ceiling was ever actually installed
in Hearst Castle, but we are really lucky
to have it installed here in New York
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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