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Princeton Essays on the Arts
Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting
Art historians have often minimized the variety and complexity of seventeenth-century Spanish painting by concentrating on individual artists and their works and by stressing discovery of new information rather than interpretation. As a consequence, the painter emerges in isolation from the forces that shaped his work. Jonathan Brown offers another approach to the subject by relating important Spanish Baroque paintings and painters to their cultural milieu.
A critical survey of the historiography of seventeenth-century Spanish painting introduces this two-part collection of essays. Part One provides the most detailed study to date of the artistic-literary academy of Francisco Pacheco, and Part Two contains original studies of four major painters and their works: Las Meninas of Vel�zquez, Zurbar�n's decoration of the sacristy at Guadalupe, and the work by Murillo and Vald�s Leal for the Brotherhood of Charity, Seville. The essays are unified by the author's intention to show how the artists interacted with and responded to the prevailing social, theological, and historical currents of the time. While this contextual approach is not uncommon in the study of European art, it is newly applied here to restore some of the diversity and substance that Spanish Baroque painting originally possessed.
A critical survey of the historiography of seventeenth-century Spanish painting introduces this two-part collection of essays. Part One provides the most detailed study to date of the artistic-literary academy of Francisco Pacheco, and Part Two contains original studies of four major painters and their works: Las Meninas of Vel�zquez, Zurbar�n's decoration of the sacristy at Guadalupe, and the work by Murillo and Vald�s Leal for the Brotherhood of Charity, Seville. The essays are unified by the author's intention to show how the artists interacted with and responded to the prevailing social, theological, and historical currents of the time. While this contextual approach is not uncommon in the study of European art, it is newly applied here to restore some of the diversity and substance that Spanish Baroque painting originally possessed.
- GenresArtNonfiction
201 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 27, 2022
Picked this up for $1 after reading Brown’s NYT obituary. They name him our foremost authority on Velazquez, and that’s apparent from the chapter on Las Meninas. The guy has every inch of the painting memorized. Knows where in the Alcazar it was likely created (the windows and doors are a tell), and has pieced together just about all of the known facts about Velazquez, whose greatness probably benefits from how little we know of him.
The other essays are dry and specialized, as you’d expect from the Princeton Press circa 1978, but I can now tell you a lot about intellectual life in 17th Century Seville, including how to read the complex symbology of two massive ceiling paintings that apparently exist (but no one knows where?). The Virgin of Guadalupe now means something to me and the royal monastery in Guadalupe is officially on my list the next time I’m In Spain.
It’s also an excellent primer on Spanish history— social history (plagues! Lying rich poseurs!), religious orders, royal patronage, and propaganda— exactly where Sheila Hale’s Titian leaves off, late in the reign of sad boy Felipe II. A not super exciting box checked on my ongoing refresher of great painters from Bellini to Manet.
The other essays are dry and specialized, as you’d expect from the Princeton Press circa 1978, but I can now tell you a lot about intellectual life in 17th Century Seville, including how to read the complex symbology of two massive ceiling paintings that apparently exist (but no one knows where?). The Virgin of Guadalupe now means something to me and the royal monastery in Guadalupe is officially on my list the next time I’m In Spain.
It’s also an excellent primer on Spanish history— social history (plagues! Lying rich poseurs!), religious orders, royal patronage, and propaganda— exactly where Sheila Hale’s Titian leaves off, late in the reign of sad boy Felipe II. A not super exciting box checked on my ongoing refresher of great painters from Bellini to Manet.
March 18, 2022
"the monographic approach has been invaluable because it has excluded the study of a class of patron who conceived and monitored the work at every step" (Brown: 111)
This book is a critique of the way in which Spanish Baroque painting has been analysed and studied over the centuries. The book wants to defend a method that takes into consideration not just the lifes and works of the artists. By doing this, the art of the period will look less homogenous and certain ideas will be revealed, including the diversity of patronage within the Catholic Church.
But the fourth chapter seems contradictory. In the example of Las Meninas too much personal information is given about Velazquez and how his desire to obtain a knighthood made him paint Las Meninas. Although the context is used to explain the attendant's pose in the painting, the biographical details seem the most important element.
Luckily the fifth and sixth chapters really show this new method of analysis. In these chapters the author is not important to analyse/understand a painting but the setting or the comissioner/institution. Consequently ideas of the time come to the surface, like how mass mortality affected the attitudes of Sevillians who survived.
If Brown's method wasn't clear at first, the book is clear at one thing though: how badly Spanish scholars on Spanish Baroque painting were. The book hints at the idea that only when international scholars got involved things began to improve. In fact, the introduction mentions how the method Brown suggests for Baroque Spanish painting was already in use in the history of Spanish art. This removes any novelty from the book.
Also, the first and second chapters may seem shocking as they don't explicitly state how the academy and its members influenced seventeenth-century Spanish Baroque painting. It is up to the reader to guess it.
For anyone reading this book in 2022, almost years and years since it was first published, the book seems out of date. Many art history courses now take into consideration the cultural, social and political context. Perhaps the book was a revolution when it came out, but now it merely stands as a reminder of how things used to be as far as Baroque Spanish painting is concerned.
This book is a critique of the way in which Spanish Baroque painting has been analysed and studied over the centuries. The book wants to defend a method that takes into consideration not just the lifes and works of the artists. By doing this, the art of the period will look less homogenous and certain ideas will be revealed, including the diversity of patronage within the Catholic Church.
But the fourth chapter seems contradictory. In the example of Las Meninas too much personal information is given about Velazquez and how his desire to obtain a knighthood made him paint Las Meninas. Although the context is used to explain the attendant's pose in the painting, the biographical details seem the most important element.
Luckily the fifth and sixth chapters really show this new method of analysis. In these chapters the author is not important to analyse/understand a painting but the setting or the comissioner/institution. Consequently ideas of the time come to the surface, like how mass mortality affected the attitudes of Sevillians who survived.
If Brown's method wasn't clear at first, the book is clear at one thing though: how badly Spanish scholars on Spanish Baroque painting were. The book hints at the idea that only when international scholars got involved things began to improve. In fact, the introduction mentions how the method Brown suggests for Baroque Spanish painting was already in use in the history of Spanish art. This removes any novelty from the book.
Also, the first and second chapters may seem shocking as they don't explicitly state how the academy and its members influenced seventeenth-century Spanish Baroque painting. It is up to the reader to guess it.
For anyone reading this book in 2022, almost years and years since it was first published, the book seems out of date. Many art history courses now take into consideration the cultural, social and political context. Perhaps the book was a revolution when it came out, but now it merely stands as a reminder of how things used to be as far as Baroque Spanish painting is concerned.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews