[Ceán Bermúdez as an Enlightened Art Historian and Collector]. Edited by Elena Maria Santiago Páez. Part One

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Ceán Bermúdez
Historiador del arte y collecionista ilustrado

[Ceán Bermúdez as an Enlightened Art Historian and Collector]
Edited by Elena Maria Santiago Páez

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España and Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2016

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro. Part One

The cover of the book, with a Portrait of  Juan Agustin Ceán Bermúdez by Francisco de Goya,
about 1786, private collection

Juan Agustin Ceán Bermúdez (1749-1829) is practically unknown in Italy. Yet it is one of the 'founding fathers' (perhaps 'the' founding father) of the Spanish history of art. The Biblioteca Nacional de España and the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica dedicated to him an exhibition held in Madrid from 20 May to 11 September 2016. At the same time, a beautiful catalogue was published by Elena Maria Santiago Páez. I am reporting below its summary, while I will dwell on the contents later on. 

SUMMARY

• Elena M.^a Santiago Páez. Presentación [Presentation];
• Javier González Santos. Cronología. Los trabajos y los días: Ceán en el tiempo [Chronology. Work and days: Ceán and time]];

SURVEYS

• Javier González Santos. Juan Agustin Ceán Bermúdez, una biografia intelectual [Juan Agustin Ceán Bermúdez, an intellectual biography];
• Daniel Crespo Delgado. «Sin título» [«Without title»];
• David García Lopez. «Mas pareche hecha por una sociedad de lavoriosos Yndividuos, que por uno solo». El método de trabajo de Ceán Bermúdez [«It seems more done for a group of hard-working individuals than for a single one». Ceán Bermúdez's working method];
• Beatriz Hidalgo Caldas. Ceán «verdadero aficionado» y coleccionista de dibujos [Ceán «true lover» and collector of drawings];
• Elena Maria Santiago Páez. La historia del grabado a través de la colección de Ceán Bermúdez [The history of engraving through Ceán Bermúdez's collection].

CATALOGUE

• Javier González Santos. Apuntes biográficos [Biographical notes];
• Daniel Crespo Delgado, Miriam Cera Brea and David García Lopez. Imprescindible Sevilla [Essential Siviglia];
• David García Lopez. El Diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España [The Historical Dictionary of the Most Illustrious Professors of the Fine Arts in Spain]; 
• Daniel Crespo Delgado and Miriam Cera Brea. Ceán y la arquitectura [Ceán and architecture];
• David García Lopez and Daniel Crespo Delgado. Obras crepuscolares [Late works];
• David García Lopez and Daniel Crespo Delgado. Artistas, nuevos héroes para una nueva época [Artists, new heroes for a new era];
• Miriam Cera Brea. La biblioteca de Ceán: manuscritos y libros de bellas artes [Ceán's library: manuscripts and books of fine arts];
• Beatriz Hidalgo Caldas. El coleccionismo ilustrado de dibujos en Sevilla y Madrid durante el último tercio del siglo XVIII y comenzios del XIX a la luz de la colección de Ceán Bermúdez [The collecting of drawings in Seville and Madrid in the last third of the XVIII cenrtury and at the beginnings of the XIX century, in the light of Ceán Bermúdez's collection];
• Elena Maria Santiago Páez , Concha Huidobro Salas and Ángeles Santos Almendros. Ceán Bermúdez, coleccionista de estampas [Ceán Bermúdez as collector of prints]
• 
  
• Ángeles Santos Almendros. Bibliografía [Bibliography].
• Angeles Santos Almendros, Índice onomástico [Indiex of names].
• Ángeles Santos Almendros. Índice de obras de Ceán Bermúdez [Index of the works by Ceán Bermúdez].

Art historian and collector

Ceán's literary output (including both published works and manuscripts, mostly preserved at the Biblioteca Nacional de España) is almost exterminated. The title of the present catalogue aims to highlight that Juan Agustin was an art historian, but also a collector. As an art historian, he was the author of works such as the Diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España (The Historical Dictionary of the Most Illustrious Professors of the Fine Arts in Spain) (published in six volumes in 1800) or the Historia del Arte de la Pintura (The History of the Art of Painting, in eleven tomes, left manuscripts, compiled roughly from 1822 to 1828), and many other texts which we will discuss. As a collector, he is known for his passion for gathering drawings and, above all, prints. Given that, for reasons of space, this last aspect will almost be left out in my review, it is good to clarify immediately that drawings and prints played a key role in his training on art criticism and that it was precisely this educational value that Juan Agustin tried to reassert in his numerous writings dedicated to graphics. Works like the History of the Art of Painting (in which Ceán wrote a veritable history of European art, also including Spanish painting and claiming an important role for it on the basis of stylistic reasoning) would not have been possible without the systematic study of prints, for a man who lived most of his life between Seville and Madrid, and travelled a lot in Spain, but who never went abroad in his life. Thus, for example, his visual culture related to Italian painting was substantiated by the paintings of Italian artists kept in Spain and, for the rest, in fact, by the examination of graphic art. From this point of view, Ceán's memory is very reminiscent of the great collections of French prints of the eighteenth century, beginning with the Count of Caylus and Pierre-Jean Mariette.

Spanish Enlightment

All in all, the link with France is evident. Ceán was a leading exponent of what is usually called 'Spanish Enlightenment' and which was most apparent in eighteenth-century Spain, under the Bourbons. It was in those years that the new dynasty (succeeded to the Hapsburgs at the beginning of the century) inaugurated a government of 'enlightened despotism' that sought to carry out, albeit with great difficulty, a reformist policy aimed at modernizing the country, by reducing the weight of the Church and of the Inquisition, renewing the administration, but also enhancing the history and cultural heritage of the country. In this context, a figure such as Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744-1811), politician, reformist administrator, philosopher and man of culture, who was the real mentor of the young Ceán Bermudez, was on the spotlight in Spain. It did not matter much, in this sense, that Spain embarked, from the late eighteenth century, into a series of political vicissitudes that would ultimately lead to the end of the reformist season, when the Bourbons regained control on the throne after the French invasion. Ceán, while still maintaining a particularly prudent behaviour (which, however, did not spare him the house arrest between 1812 and 1814) was intimately a child of the Age of Enlightenment.

Francisco de Goya, Portrait of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, 1798, Madrid, Prado Museum
Source: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_Melchor_de_Jovellanos#/media/File:Francisco_de_Goya_y_Lucientes_-_Gaspar_Melchor_de_Jovellanos.jpg

Biographical notes

Ceán Bermúdez was born in Asturias, in Gijón, in 1749. He had a merchant family, which enjoyed locally some reputation, as they had access to the Jovellanos house (also Asturians themselves, but above all nobles). Juan Agustin, in particular, had the same age as one of the brothers of Don Gaspar Melchor, who was just five years older than him. His education took place in the latter's house; towards Don Gaspar, Ceán always showed extreme gratitude, both for what he had done for his studies and for the possibility of working in the Spanish administration and getting to know the most prominent intellectual personalities of the country. Rather than a fraternal friendship (which also existed) one would think of the deference with which a disciple looks at his mentor. Between 1764 and 1767, however, Juan Agustin was at the University of Alcalà de Henares, as a page by don Gaspar. Soon he became his secretary. In 1768 he just followed in Seville Jovellanos, who was appointed administrator of criminal justice there. As far as we know, Ceán's great passion for the art world would date back to these years. Juan Agustin became a pupil of the painter Juan de Espinal (1714-1783) and convinced him, together with other amateurs, to open and preside over a School of Drawing. In 1776, on the interest of Jovellanos, Ceán moved even to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), at that moment the most famous painter in Europe, and attended some classes of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

Anton Raphael Mengs, Self portrait,  about 1775, Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum
Source: https://www.arthermitage.org/Anton-Raphael-Mengs/Self-Portrait.html

The experience did not last long: at the beginning of 1777 Mengs decided to return to Rome, while Ceán re-established himself in Seville. When, a year or so later, Jovellanos was appointed tax judge in Madrid, Ceán followed him, and the decision to abandon all personal artistic ambitions was seemingly already taken. At thirty, Juan Agustin was well acquainted in the Enlightenment circles of Madrid and had the opportunity to make friendship with Goya. In 1783, thanks to Francisco Cabarrús (1752-1810), a friend of Jovellanos, Ceán entered the accounting administration of the Banco de San Carlos; here he began a career that, in fact, ended only in 1815, with his retirement, but certainly cannot be defined as quiet.

Francisco de Goya, Portrait of Francisco Cabarrús, Madrid, Bank of Spain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_Cabarr%C3%BAs.jpg

It is not my intention to summarize now the intricate political events of Spain across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, events that, at first (simplifying at most) can be defined as the power struggle between conservative or 'progressive' factions (but where, in reality, completely dubious characters, such as Manuel Godoy (1767-1851) played a crucial role).

Antonio Carnicero, Portrait of Manuel de Godoy, 1790, Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manuel_de_Godoy,_por_Antonio_Carnicero_
(Real_Academia_de_Bellas_Artes_de_San_Fernando).jpg

In a second phase, then, things were further complicated and took on the contours of a real war of independence when, in 1808, Napoleon proclaimed himself king of Spain, and then surrendered the throne to his brother Joseph Bonaparte.

François Gérard, Portrait of Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte as King of Spain, about 1808,
Musée national du Château de Fontainebleau
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph-Bonaparte.jpg

It suffices to say that Ceán (with his family) lived and worked in Madrid from 1783 to 1790; then he was in Seville from 1790 to 1797; again in Madrid, he remained there until 1801, when he was sent back to Seville, where he remained until 1808. In that year he made his definitive return to Madrid. All these movements corresponded, in fact, to phases of higher or lower political fortune of Jovellanos. In 1808, on the occasion of the umpteenth turnaround, Ceán decided to remain in the capital, even under French domination, while the independentists took refuge in Seville. Juan Agustin was 59, had a wife and three dependent children, and was probably tired of a life of forced uprooting. Then, in 1811, he lost his relationship with his mentor: Jovellanos died in exile. With the restoration, Ceán experienced the shame of house arrest for collaboration, only to be rehabilitated in 1814 and to retire in the following year. The remaining fifteen years of life were undoubtedly the most rewarding from the point of view of academic recognition and indeed were entirely devoted to the studies until his death (1829).

Francisco de Goya, The Third of May 1808. Madrid, Prado Museum.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Tres_de_Mayo,_by_Francisco_de_Goya,_
from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg

Between erudition and art history

The Historical Dictionary of the Most Illustrious Professors of the Fine Arts in Spain (1800), the Noticias de los arquitectos y arquitectura en España desde su restauración (News from architects and architecture in Spain since its restoration), whose manuscript was passed to Cean by the scholar Eugenio Llaguno in 1799  and published in 1829), the Sumario de las antigüedades romanas que hay en España, en especial las pertenecientes a las Bellas Artes (Summary of the Roman antiquities that exist in Spain, especially those belonging to the Fine Arts, printed posthumously in 1832) and the History of the Art of Painting in eleven tomes (seven of text and four appendices) were probably the most significant titles by Juan Agustin in the context of a production that - it has been said - proved to be exterminated. Faced with works such as these, often of encyclopaedic dimensions, it would be tempting to 'box' Ceán within the context of great eighteenth-century erudition, while underestimating his capacity for stylistic criticism and historical perspective. The thesis of the catalogue is that the Asturian scholar proved not to be a passive (while formidable) collector of news, but rather a man who interpreted the inquiry in the past as a form of recovery and enhancement of a national identity and a preparatory aspect to the progress of culture (and therefore well-being) of the country. On the production of Juan Agustin, Daniel Crespo Delgado wrote: "Ceán’s writings are numerous and undoubtedly heterogeneous, going from erudite monographs to printed articles, from short guides to voluminous dictionaries, from academic relationships to dialogues. In Spain none before him had written so much and so differently on the fine arts. The same variety is to be found in the contents of his texts: he translated and annotated treatises, elaborated catalogues of great collections, drew criticisms of exhibitions and paintings, explained how to distinguish copies from the originals, gave his opinion on the best way to organize an academy [...] but always with the same objective: to give birth to a modern history of art, which was missing in the country" (p.71). For Ceán, history was teacher of life and, in this case, art history was a fundamental tool to give a true amateur, on one hand, the ability to understand the personality, merit and style of the various artists and works; and, on the other hand, the possibility of directing contemporary masters towards the achievement of beauty in art. If one looks carefully, we are dealing with aspects clearly borrowed (directly or indirectly, through the cultural circle of Jovellanos, which is also interested in 'arts policy') from the theoretical debate that unfolded on the subject in France during the Eighteenth century [1].

Methodological aspects

Indeed, already the title of the Historical Dictionary (i.e. Ceán's best known work), seems to deny all this, suggesting a compilation of lives that could be considered as an update to the Picturesque and Endowed Spanish Parnassus, the last part of Antonio Palomino’s treaty The pictorial museum and optical scale (1724). Yet things are very different: "It is clear that Palomino continued to rely on a Vasarian scheme - García Lopez wrote -, and was still centred on a literary story that, at least in the biographies of the most important artists, had as its main objective the praise of the lives and works of painters to give them an exemplary character, rather than providing a truthful reading on the facts of the past. However, Ceán brought the new concepts that were developing in the field of enlightenment historiography in the field of fine arts: it was, fundamentally, the critical spirit and the documentary rigor as distinctive elements of his discourse. The artist biography, one of the founding forms of the traditional study of fine arts, thus passed from literary genre to scientific discipline" (page 225).

However, ending here would not pay sufficient credit to Céan’s work. It is true that his method was based primarily on the re-reading of the sources, on the acquisition of new documents thanks to archive research and a dense relation of correspondents throughout Spain; however, it implied, specifically, a non-trivial sight education, acquired by Juan Agustin on the one hand thanks to the many trips made in the country (see the essay by David García Lopez) and on the other one (especially for foreign works, given that - as mentioned – he never travelled abroad) thanks to the collecting of engravings. 

End of Part One

Go to Part Two 

NOTES

[1] See in this blog the review to Sandra Costa, Giovanna Perini Folesani, I savi e gli ignoranti. Dialogo del pubblico con l’arte (XVI-XVIII secolo), Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2017.