Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
Francisco Calvo Serraller
Teoría de la Pintura del Siglo de Oro [The Theory of Art in the Golden Century]
Ediciones Cátedra, 1991 (2° edizione)
Isbn 84-376-0283-1
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| El Greco, View of Toledo, 1596-1600 ca, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art Source: Wikimedia Commons |
[1] Much celebrated anthology of Spanish literature on art, published in Madrid in 1981 (this is the second edition, published ten years later). It is a strongly opinionated book; the author begins with a brief review of the history of the literature on art as a scientific discipline (and the reference to Schlosser is obvious) and then explains why the Spanish case, and in particular that of treaties on painting in the Seventeenth century or the Golden Age of Iberian painting, is even more special. Almost all texts written in those years were read and interpreted according to a distorted lens, which saw them succumb to various clichés: as a first cliché, that from a theoretical point of view the Treaties would be a simple and bored restatement of the treaties of Italian Mannerism. Second, that – as such - they would be very far away from the great Spanish painting which saw in the Seventeenth century its apogee (the century of Velázquez, Zurbarán, Alonso Cano and Ribera). Third, that there would be a clear dichotomy between the blind idealism to which the authors of the treaties adhere (written by pompous and redundant authors), and the pictorial realism of the great masters; and finally - and just assuming that these writings can bring nothing new from a theoretical point of view - that they would have been studied and found of any use by the positivist critique only for biographical data or the problems of attribution that they can help solve. Calvo Serraller traces in very dense pages the origin of this scaffolding of clichés (cf. p . 21-27 ), which dates back to the romantic taste of the late nineteenth century Spanish, and in particular to the figure of Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo (Historia de las ideas estéticas en España) and that of F. J. Sánchez Cantón (who with his monumental Fuentes literarias para la Historia del Arte español, published in five volumes between 1923 and 1941, has the merit of having made again available to the general public the text of various treaties ). Placing himself on a trail already open in 1968 by Julián Gallego in Visión y símbolos en la pintura española del Siglo de Oro (according to which "the Spanish painting of that period was not as realistic (adjective that is often applied today, but unimaginable in the seventeenth century) as many repeat "(p. 31) Calvo Serraler manages to dismantle the house of cards erected by the earlier Spanish critics in the only way possible : re-reading the treaties and representing them to the attention of the general public . The perpetuation of embarrassing clichés is, in fact, according to the author, the cause of a regrettable phenomenon: the almost total absence of critical editions of the Spanish treaties from Seventeenth Century. Of the three principal treaties of that century (Carducho, Pacheco, Martínez) the only one of which a critical edition existed, when Calvo Serraller wrote, was the one by Carducho, edited by the same author of the anthology (1979). Not to mention the so-called "minor" treaties. Calvo Serraller, therefore, presents and comments (sometimes for the first time) extracts from various texts of the Spanish Seventeenth century with the specific intent to prove that the theory of painting of that age is anything but anachronistic or without elements of originality. Given that this is his main interest, he warns that the choice of anthologized documents and of the pages drawn from them is made essentially with this view. For example, texts considered as excessively technical, like the Descripción del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial (1681 ) of fray Francisco de los Santos (guide that follows the pattern of father Sigüenza or of the Tratado de la pintura Sabia by Fray Juan Rizi) are left out (cf. p. 43). Similarly, of the treaties included in the anthology, all those pages are omitted which have an exclusive biographical flavour and are dedicated to artists operating in Spain (do not try then to find here a biography of Velázquez : you will not find it).
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| Jusepe de Ribera, Martyrdom of St. Philip, 1639, Madrid, Prado Museum Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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| Francisco de Zurbaran, Agnus Dei, 1635-1640 ca., Madrid, Prado Museum Source: Wikimedia Commons |
[2] This is the list of the works included in the anthology:
- Gaspar Gutiérrez de los Ríos, Noticia general para la estimación de las artes... (1600)
- Pablo de Céspedes, Discurso de la comparación de la antigua y moderna pintura y escultura... (1604)
- Pablo de Céspedes, Poema de la pintura
- Fray José de Sigüenza, Tercera parte de la historia de la Orden de San Gerónimo (1605);
- Juan de Jáuregui, Diálogo entre la naturaleza y las dos artes, pintura y escultura... (1618) ;
- Anónimo, Memorial de los pintores de la corte a Felipe III sobre la creación de una Academia o escuela de dibujo (1619?);
- Francisco Pacheco, A los profesores del arte de la pintura (1622);
- Juan de Butrón, Discursos apologéticos en que se defiende la ingenuidad del arte de la pintura (1626);
- Juan de Butrón, Epístola dirigida al Rey suplicando protección para la Academia de los pintores;
- Francisco Cornejo y otros, Copia de los pareceres y censuras... sobre el abuso de las figuras, y pinturas lascivas y des honestas... (1632);
- Vicente Carducho, Diálogos de la pintura... (1633);
- Lope de Vega y otros, Memorial informatorio por los pintores en el pleito que tratan... (1629-1633);
- Francisco Pacheco, Arte de la pintura... (1649);
- Claudio Antonio de Cabrera (Diego de Saavedra Fajardo), Iuzio de artes, y sciencias (1655);
- Lázaro Díaz del Valle, Origen yllustración del nobilísimo y real arte de la pintura con un epílogo y nomenclatura.... (1656);
- Jusepe Martínez, Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la pintura... (1673?) ;
- Anónimo, Memorial dado por los profesores de la pintura... (1677?) ;
- Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Deposición... en favor de los profesores de la pintura (1677) ;
- Félix de Lucio Espinosa y Malo, El pincel... (1681) ;
- Bosser, Jurídica demonstració de la noblesa de la art y professors de la pintura (1688) ;
- Bosser, Privilegio fundacional del Real Colegio de Pintores de Barcelona (1688) ;
- José García Hidalgo, Principios para estudiar el nobilísimo, y real arte de la pintura (1693) ;
- Antonio Palomino. El museo pictórico, y escala óptica (1715-1724).
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| Alonso Cano, Immaculate Conception, 1648, Provincial Museum of Vitoria Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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| Diego Velazquez, Venus at her Mirror, 1650, London, National Gallery Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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| Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Two Women at a Window, Washington, National Gallery Source: Wikimedia Commons |
[3] With respect to the lack of critical editions of Spanish treaties, denounced by Calvo Serraller in the Teoría de la Pintura del Siglo de Oro, it should be added that many things have changed in last thirty years; other scholars have placed themselves in the wake of Calvo Serraller (for what concerns us, it seems appropriate to quote Karin Hellwig, La literatura artística española del siglo XVII). The critical editions of both Pacheco (by Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas, in 1990 ) and of Jusepe Martínez (a first edition was edited by Julián Gallego, a second one is the work of María Elena Manrique Ara) have been published. The only aspect that seems unchanged is the substantial lack of interest of Italian scholars for Spanish treaties. To date, according to our knowledge, none of the various Carducho , Pacheco, Martínez or Palomino has ever been translated into our language.
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