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Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume LXXXII, Number 6, 2005 The Preacher’s Perspicuitas and Velázquez’s ‘Truthful Imitation of Nature’: An Examination of Scholarly Attitudes to Religious Paintings* Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 JEREMY ROE London The early Sevillian paintings of Velázquez are deceptively simple, which, paradoxically, underlines the fact that they are the product of a complex world now lost and remote[...]1 The apparent simplicity of Velázquez’s Sevillian works has been a focus of art historical discussion; since Pacheco stated in his Arte de la pintura (published posthumously in 1649) that Velázquez had hit upon the ‘truthful imitation of nature’ (‘la verdadera imitación del natural’) and described the skills he refined to achieve this, such as life study and the mastery of relief, much attention has been dedicated to discussion of the painter’s study of nature and the development of these studies into paintings.2 However, critical discussion of the Sevillian paintings has demonstrated an increasing awareness of the ‘complex world’ that produced Velázquez’s ‘imitation of nature’. In the nineteenth century Stirling Maxwell in his Velázquez (1855) cited the significance of the Church as patron and later Justi’s Velázquez and His Times (1888) considered the appeal of picaresque * It has not been possible to include as many illustrations in this article as I would have wished. However, many of these images may be familiar to readers already and they can all be found in the exhibition catalogue, Velázquez in Seville, edited by Michael Clarke (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1996) as well as in Enriqueta Harris, Velázquez (London: Phaidon, 1982) and Jonathan Brown, Velázquez: Painter and Courtier (New Haven/London: Yale U. P., 1986). 1 Ronald Cueto, ‘The Great Babylon of Spain and the Devout: Politics, Religion and Piety in the Seville of Velázquez’, in Velázquez in Seville, 29–33 (p. 33). 2 Francisco Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, ed. B. Bassegoda i Hugas (Madrid: Cátedra, 1990), 519. For a detailed discussion of the significance of the term ‘imitation of nature’ in treatises on painting see Jeremy Roe, ‘Velázquez’s “Imitation” of Nature Seen through “ojos doctos”: A Study of Painting, Classicism and Tridentine Reform in Seville’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 2002). ISSN 1475-3820 print/ISSN 1478-3428 online/05/06/7000735-17 © Bulletin of Spanish Studies. DOI 10.1080/1475382052000345001 Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 736 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE literature.3 The importance of the religious and literary spheres of Iberian society has been examined more closely in subsequent scholarship. The catalogues, Velázquez in Seville (1996) and Velázquez y Sevilla (1999), that accompanied the two recent exhibitions of Velázquez’s Sevillian painting document the most recent investigation. Lleó Cañal, Enriqueta Harris, David Davies and Gridley Mckim-Smith amongst others examined the paintings on a wider cultural horizon beyond the studio, combining consideration of how they were made with how they were seen.4 A further contribution is made, in this article, to the research into the significance of the visual arts amidst the complexity of Golden-Age Iberian culture. However, the primary concern of my discussion is to consider how Velázquez’s spectators responded to his religious paintings, and to undertake this I explore the relationships between painting and preaching. Viewed in the light of these cultural investigations the paintings’ ‘simplicity’ and Velázquez’s remarkable ‘imitation of nature’ may be ‘seen through’ to reveal a deeper range of concerns than solely the carefully illuminated portrayal of figures, objects and landscape. The aim of this paper is to explore these deeper concerns by discussing how Velázquez’s spectators would have engaged with his religious painting, as both visual phenomena and the subject of erudite discussion. As well as contributing to Velázquez studies this discussion is also concerned with the wider theme of spectatorship and the visual arts. El arte de mirar: la pintura y su público en la España de Velázquez (1997) by Miguel Morán and Javier Portús offers a range of valuable critical perspectives on the public and spectators of the visual arts in Golden Age Spain. Their studies of spectatorship, centred on the court and seventeenth-century Madrid, draw attention to the interdisciplinary nature of this field of research, which is an important dimension of this article, which turns attention from Madrid to Seville’s scholarly community, and in particular Francisco de Rioja (1583–1659).5 A detailed consideration of how Rioja and his contemporaries looked at painting elucidates the complexity of Seville’s intellectual traditions and ideological concerns and provides further evidence for what Morán and Portús term ‘hábitos visuales’.6 Rioja 3 See William Stirling Maxwell, Velázquez (London: J. W. Parker & Son, 1855); Carl Justi, Diego Velázquez and his Times, trans. A. H. Keane (London: H. Grevel & Co., 1889). 4 Lleó Cañal, ‘The Cultivated Elite of Velázquez’s Seville’, in Velázquez in Seville, 23– 27; Enriqueta Harris, ‘Velázquez, Sevillian Painter of Sacred Subjects’, ibid., 46–47; David Davies, ‘Velázquez’s bodegones’, ibid., 51–65; Gridley Mckim-Smith, ‘La técnica Sevillana de Velázquez’, Velázquez y Sevilla, ed. Alfredo J. Morales (Sevilla: Aldeasa, 1999), 109–23. 5 For an introduction to the range of scholars, including Rioja, working in Seville at the time of Velázquez’s apprenticeship and early career see Jonathan Brown’s seminal study ‘Theory of Art in the Academy of Francisco Pacheco’, in his Images and Ideas in Seventeenthcentury Spanish Painting (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1978). 6 Miguel Morán Turina and Javier Portús Pérez, El arte de mirar: la pintura y su público en la España de Velázquez (Madrid: ISTMO, 1997), 8. Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 737 is an exemplary figure of his generation, whose life combined religion, court politics, painting and poetry. Rioja is best known today as a poet, but his contributions to debates concerning the decorum of paintings by Pacheco have brought him to the attention of art historians. The complexity of Sevillian culture as discussed by authors such as Lleó and Cueto are clearly illustrated by Rioja; his writings enable the study of the contrasting concerns of Velázquez’s spectators and the consideration of how these may have informed the production of Velázquez’s paintings. Rioja’s treatise on the rhetorical principles for preaching provides important perspectives to develop an understanding of the significance of Velázquez’s religious paintings for his spectators. Despite the ever-present problem of a lack of documentary evidence for this period of Velázquez’s life a number of spectators of his paintings may be identified by name. Rioja was one and another was the poet’s friend and correspondent Juan de Fonseca y Figueroa (1585–1627). However, in addition to examining Velázquez’s specific spectators, this article aims to explore wider cultural attitudes to spectatorship of paintings. An initial and general framework for such considerations is found in the Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane by the Archbishop of Bologna, Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597). Published in 1582 this treatise undertakes a detailed discussion of the traditions and functions of Christian painting and addresses the task of the Christian painter. It marks an important engagement with the canons and decrees of the 25th Session of the Council of Trent and offers a valuable source to consider Tridentine attitudes to painting. Paleotti identified four classes of spectators: ‘painters’, ‘scholars’, ‘the simple’ and ‘the pious’ and proposed that each looked at paintings differently.7 He claimed that ‘painters’ concentrated on the formal aspects of painting. It may be argued that it is these spectators on whom art historians have focused through the study of painting treatises as the principal sources for the language and concepts employed in the discussion of painting. To consider the other classes of spectators these linguistic and conceptual resources are insufficient, and an aim of this study is to redress this lack. According to Paleotti, ‘scholars’ applied their erudition to the scenes represented. Paleotti’s text as a whole signals the range of erudite responses a work may elicit, but it also indicates the Tridentine concerns for painting’s role as a tool for evangelism. In contrast to the scholar’s erudition, the ‘simple’ spectator was expected to respond to images by learning the gospel narrative depicted and its doctrine, which suggests a naive response to paintings as simply a representation of a visual narrative. Similarly ‘the pious’ spectator’s response may be understood in 7 ‘[…] i pittori, i letterati, gl’idioti e gli spirituali’ (G. Paleotti, ‘Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane’, in Trattati d’arte del cinquecento, ed. P. Barocchi, 3 vols [Bari: G. Laterza, 1960–62], II, 117–509 [p. 497]). Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 738 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE terms of naivety, except that the painting was a point of departure for a more searching, inner vision. An understanding of the ‘simple’ and the ‘pious’ spectators may be discerned from the writings of various scholars, but they are the most problematic to discuss, primarily because they are anonymous social categories. The contribution of scholars to both the production of specific paintings and the theoretical discussion of painting has been the subject of a range of art historical studies. In his treatise De Pictura (1435), the Florentine humanist and painter, Leon Battista Alberti, stated that painters should ‘be learned in all the liberal arts’ and ‘should associate with poets and orators’.8 During the course of the Renaissance the response, by painters, to Alberti’s treatise is most clearly demonstrated in their depiction of erudite subject matter drawn from classical and biblical sources. Contracts reveal that the specific details of subject matter were often decided by the patrons or their learned advisors, which reveals the cultural relationships that assured the decorum of paintings, whether mythological or religious. During the Catholic Reformation the concern for decorum in religious paintings attained a greater ideological importance. Pacheco’s research, during Velázquez’s apprenticeship, into the iconographical decorum of his paintings is paradigmatic of this cultural concern.9 Erudite discussion of decorum between scholars and painters clearly informed the production of painting, but the concern for decorum, whether classical or religious, was only one facet of a wider scholarly discourse of painting. Erwin Panofsky’s Idea: A Concept in Art Theory (1924) set a lasting precedent for art historical investigation into the relationships of painting and philosophical thought during the Renaissance.10 Panofsky himself acknowledged the difficulties inherent in such a project, in response to which art historians have explored new methodological approaches to the scholarly roots of painting. In The Judgement of Sense (1987) David Summers’ inquiry into how philosophical, scientific and cultural concerns informed Renaissance painting set aside an historical narrative to offer a ‘mosaic’ of ideas and themes surrounding art over the course of the Renaissance. One of Summers’ ‘tessarae’ is the contribution of rhetoric.11 8 L. B. Alberti, On Painting, trans. C. Grayson (London: Penguin, 1991), 88. 9 Pacheco’s collections of manuscripts held in Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional and at the Universidad de Sevilla document his iconographical research and his requests for scholars to approve his paintings. The responses to his Last Judgement (1610–14) were later included as two of his three chapters discussing decorum in the Arte de la pintura (El arte de la pintura, ed. Bassegoda i Hugas, 291–340). For further discussion of Pacheco’s studies see Brown, Images and Ideas, 60–83. 10 Erwin Panofsky, Idea: A Concept in Art Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1968). For analysis of this text and David Summers’ see Roe, ‘Velázquez’s “Imitation” of Nature’. 11 David Summers, The Judgement of Sense (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1987). Summers discussed Rhetoric at various points in this text. In Chapter 7, ‘The Light of the Piazza’, in his section ‘Cicero on the Appeal of Eloquence’, he addressed the effect of rhetoric Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 739 A model for the study of this theme had been undertaken by Michael Baxandall in 1971.12 He examined the application of rhetoric in early Renaissance discussions of painting and explored how rhetorical theory informed Alberti’s theory of painting. The relationship of rhetoric and painting is a history that remains to be explored in detail, but the research Baxandall and Summers demonstrates that rhetoric provided a critical framework for scholars to discuss paintings that in turn informed the production of actual works.13 Paleotti’s analysis of painting’s spectators is one indication of the awareness of the rhetorical dimensions of Painting. The Archbishop of Bologna addressed this theme directly in several chapters that compared the orator, who had to persuade his listeners to share his opinions, with the painter, whose duty was ‘to persuade people to piety and order them to God’.14 Continuing this argument he said that like the orator the painter has ‘to delight, instruct and move’ his spectators.15 Paleotti went on to examine each of these aspects in turn; this concern for the instruction of the people and the ways paintings could delight and move spectators indicate Paleotti’s, or an erudite, understanding of the simple and pious spectators Evidence that Iberian spectators considered paintings with concepts drawn from rhetoric is found in a number of texts written at the turn of the seventeenth century. The treatises by Gaspar Gutiérrez de los Ríos and Juan de Butrón demonstrate how rhetoric was used to discuss Painting.16 Both dedicated chapters to Painting’s emulation of rhetoric and at other points in their treatises frequently described Painting’s ability to instruct spectators. Butrón gave a particularly detailed discussion of Painting’s on both listeners trained in the art and the ‘unskilled crowd’, which offers a paradigm to understand Paleotti’s classification of different spectators. He went on to discuss this in relationship to Paleotti’s treatise. 12 Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition 1350–1450 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). 13 Further discussion of this theme is found in: Svetlana Alpers, ‘Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes in Vasari’s Lives’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIII (1960), 190–215; Peinture et rhétorique. Actes du Colloque de l’Académie de France à Rome, ed. O. Bonfait (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1994), which includes Marc Fumaroli, ‘Ut pictura rhetorica divina’, 77–104; Alberto Carrere and José Saborit, Retórica de la pintura (Madrid: Cátedra, 2000). 14 ‘perusadere le persone alla pieta et ordinarle a Dio’ (Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini, 215). 15 ‘dilettare, insegnare e movere’ (ibid.). Paleotti’s discussion draws on his examination of the causes for Painting’s invention: Chapter 12, ‘Delle cause perché s’introducessero le imagini profane’. He described four: the need to communicate, Painting’s use as a medium for knowledge, the delight gained from images, and the virtuous effects images can have. On this foundation he addressed the Christian traditions of painting. 16 Gaspar Gutiérrez de los Ríos, Noticia general para la estimación de las artes y de la manera en que conocen las liberales de las que son mecánicas y serviles (Madrid: Pedro Madrigal, 1599); Juan de Butrón, Discursos apologéticos en que se defiende la ingenuidad del arte de la pintura, que es liberal y noble de todos derechos (Madrid: L. Sánchez, 1626). Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 740 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE rhetorical features, with especial regard to the effectiveness of religious painting; in addition his discourses address the responses of different spectators to paintings. Although these recall Paleotti’s four categories of spectator, Butrón’s text focused on the relationship of the scholar and the painter.17 The contrast of these treatises with discussion of actual paintings makes evident that they provide a theoretical reflection on erudite criticism to actual paintings, which was underpinned by ideas drawn from rhetoric. In the intervening period between the publication of Gutiérrez’s and Butrón’s treatises the only publication of criticism on Iberian painting was the third part of Fray José de Sigüenza’s (c.1544–1606) Historia de la Orden de San Jerónimo. Published in 1605, it discusses the variety of artistic wealth collected by the monastery’s founder, Philip II.18 In Discurso XVII of the second part Sigüenza gave ekphrases of the paintings, which allude to the naive responses of the simple and pious spectators.19 His analysis combines praise of the painter’s skill with attention to the spiritual significance of the paintings; his treatise signals the ‘scholarly’ spectators’ awareness of painterly issues such as perspective, although he consistently refers to his ignorance of such matters. There is also discussion of paintings in terms of their historical or theological decorum and their rhetorical effects. By recording such effects he implies that the paintings displayed at El Escorial fulfilled the Tridentine ideals. Another example of the use of rhetoric in painting criticism is found in a silva by the Sevillian poet Antonio Ortiz Melgarejo. It is dedicated to Pacheco’s painting of the Last Judgement (1610–14) and formulates an erudite response to painting.20 It combines ekphrastic description with praise of various aspects of Pacheco’s painting. The description of the multitudes awaiting judgement and the face of the divine judge highlights Pacheco’s ‘imitation of nature’, although Melgarejo acknowledges that it has been mediated by the painter’s concerns for ‘la unión, la belleza y el decoro’. The effect of such a lifelike appearance, even of this eschatological event, is his main theme and he draws to a close by stating: ‘¿No ves las 17 Butrón’s most important of discussion spectators is found in his fourth and fourteenth discourses. The former offers an important distinction between the ‘simple’ spectator and more erudite responses. The latter discourse focuses on Painting’s evangelizing function. 18 Another important example of painting criticism is Pablo de Céspedes, Discurso de la antigua y moderna pintura y escultura [...], written for the scholar Pedro de Valencia in 1604. The manuscript was first published in Volume III of J. A. Ceán Bermúdez, Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España, 3 vols (Madrid: Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 1965). 19 Fray José de Sigüenza, Fundación del monasterio de El Escorial por Felipe II (Madrid: Apostolado de la Prensa, 1927). 20 Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, ed. Bassegoda i Hugas, 339. The poem concludes the Arte’s discussion of decorum and follows the approvals for the painting discussed above. Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 741 cuatro espíritus alados / tener con nuevo efecto peregrino / los ojos engañados?’.21 The convincing illusory effect of the ‘imitation of nature’ signals recognition of the painting’s rhetorical virtuosity. Melgarejo highlights this in two ways: firstly, by referring to the other senses that were mobilized, such as feeling the sparks from the burning fires and hearing the sounds of chains, and then by stating the theological ideas of heaven and hell which the painting ‘brings to the memory’; these passages may be read in terms of the response to paintings by the simple or the pious spectators. Although ekphrastic discussion like Melgarejo’s may be read in terms of the established ‘rivalry’ between poet and painter, it also documents the application of the rhetorical framework employed by Paleotti in discussion of paintings. The use of rhetoric to discuss painting and the allusion to the painter’s role as a preacher, although brief, should not be overlooked; both allude to a complex series of debates concerning rhetoric which reveal that discussion of the imitation of nature, such as Sigüenza’s or Melgarejo’s, was grounded in anything but a naive vision of painting. These debates may be explored through the writings of Francisco de Rioja, but before examining his work an overview of rhetorical theory during the Catholic Reformation is required. Marc Fumaroli offers a wide-ranging study of many writers across Europe who engaged in the debates concerning the ars oratoria.22 He chose an Iberian text, the Ecclesiasticae Rhetoricae of the Dominican Friar Luis de Granada (1504–1588) to discuss three fundamental themes underpinning the efforts to reform the practice of preaching in Catholic Europe.23 Alberto Carrere and José Saborit term these three themes the virtutes elocutionis. They note that the first, puritas, concerned with the correct use of language, was drawn from the art of Grammar. Granada’s latinitas corresponds to this; however, in his case it may be understood as the use of language based on the Latin of the Vulgate and the Church Fathers. Fumaroli commented that the preacher should adjust the latinitas, or purity, to the audience. The second two were based on rhetorical principles, perspicuitas referred to the ‘comprehensibility of the discussion’, and ornatus ‘the beauty of the expression through its use of tropes and figures’.24 21 Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, 340. 22 Marc Fumaroli, L’Âge de l’éloquence: rhétorique et ‘res literaria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique (Paris: Champion, 1980). 23 First published in Lisbon in 1576. 24 Retórica de la pintura, 194. Carrere and Saborit’s discussion departs from the structure given in Cicero’s Ad Herenium. Cicero listed three qualities a style must have: taste (elegantiam), artistic composition (compositionem) and distinction (dignitatem). Latinitas and perspicuitas are discussed in the section on taste and ornatus in the final section of M. Tulli Cicero, Ad Herenium, trans. H. Caplan (London: Loeb Classical Library, Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 742 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE The concern for the practical application of preaching is more apparent in the latter two principles: perspicuitas and ornatus. Fumaroli writes that according to Granada the former ‘renders the discourse at once acceptable to scholars, and comprehensible to the ignorant’ while the latter was to be conditioned by utility, not by rhythm or symphonia verborum.25 Hence it is implied that the use of language, tropes and figures should be restrained while the preacher focused on his task. Fumaroli’s comments demonstrate that the Tridentine models of sacred rhetoric placed an emphasis on a stylistic decorum grounded in the need for effective communication. To develop a more detailed understanding of the significance of these terms their application by preachers and their commentators needs to be considered. The concern for stylistic decorum has been noted in the publication of actual sermons. In particular Hilary Dansey Smith’s Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age provides a study of the publications of ten preachers, two of whom, Fray Luis de Rebolledo OFM (1549–1613) and Fray Pedro de Valderrama OSA (1550–1611), were from Seville. Smith’s discussion reveals that although Granada’s theoretical principles were followed by some, they were nevertheless in competition with others.26 Amongst the evidence examined, Smith quotes Francisco de Medina’s comments on preachers, taken from his preface to Fernando Herrera’s Obras de Garcilaso de la Vega con annotaciones.27 Employing sacred rhetoric to illustrate poetic principles Medina criticized preachers whose sermons placed emphasis on ‘deleites y galas’ rather than those whose work focused on evangelical severity and simplicity.28 Despite their early date, Medina’s comments signal that Granada’s theory of stylistic decorum was responded to by scholars in Seville. Both Fumaroli’s historical account and Smith’s study demonstrate that debates about rhetoric focused on ‘perspicuity’ and ‘ornament’. A metaphor Medina employed to describe the two styles of rhetoric he considered indicates a relationship between the two. He distinguished between 1954), 268–75. 25 Fumaroli, L’Âge de l’éloquence, 148. Hereafter the English terms perspicuity and ornament are used. 26 Hilary Dansey Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1978), 94, n. 6. Smith’s study, based on preachers’ handbooks as well as theoretical treatises, identified two ‘camps’ of rhetorical theory, one favouring ‘sincerity and plainspeaking’, identified with Granada, and the other ‘eloquence and elegance’. On the basis of her analysis of published sermons, she qualified this by saying that the divisions are not clear and that ‘some preachers are positively inconsistent’. 27 Until his death in 1615 Medina was one of the central figures of Seville’s intellectual life that took an active interest in painting. He gave advice to Pacheco on the subject matter of his compositions, including the Last Judgement, and to the renowned patron Fernando Enríquez Afán de Ribera, the third Duke of Alcalá, regarding the commissioning of paintings. 28 Fernando de Herrera, Obras de Garcilaso de la Vega con anotaciones (Seville, 1580). Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 743 preachers who ‘adorn themselves with modest clothes, as appropriate to the authority of their persons’, and others that dress in a costume ‘galano, pero indecente, sembrado de mil colores y esmaltes, pero sin el concierto que se demanda’.29 The metaphor of clothing, which may conceal and delude, signals a relationship between ‘perspicuity’ and ‘ornament’ and the potential for these concepts to be applied in a visual context, to a painted sermon. Francisco de Rioja’s discussion of rhetoric explores this boundary between verbal and visual rhetoric and offers a critical framework to consider Velázquez’s paintings. The continuation of the Tridentine concern for the reform of preaching following the principles laid down by Luis de Granada is indicated by Rioja’s unpublished ‘Avisos que han de tener un predicador’, dated 13 March 1616. A number of copies of this work exist in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, and the Biblioteca Colombina, Seville. The copy quoted from here was compiled by Pacheco in what is known as the ‘Tratados de la erudición’, and is not only further evidence of his close relationship to Rioja, but also indicates the painter’s own interest in rhetoric. Rioja’s declaration that the ‘el fin del orador cristiano es enseñar al pueblo con la autoridad de los libros sagrados [...]’ and that ‘las palabras son ornato i lustre de las cosas cuando se ponen con dignidad i conveniencia’ signals the concerns for effective preaching as well as ‘perspicuity’ and ‘ornament’.30 In addition, his argument that the prophets surpassed Greek and Latin authors for their ways of speaking suggests an ideological concern for puritas similar to Granada’s. An important aspect of Rioja’s text is its practical application of the Tridentine theoretical ideals. To address the task of the preacher he structured his discussion with the genera elocutionis. The three styles of speaking termed in classical rhetoric subtle, impressive and medium, Rioja names: ‘delgado o sutil’, ‘robusto’ and ‘florido’. Rioja classified each with a function: the first teaches, providing the ‘razón’ of a story, the second moves the audience and the third delights them employing ‘blandura y venustidad’. His comments illustrate the application of the same rhetorical ideas Paleotti employed in his treatise on painting. He argued that each of these styles can have many variations, but the reader is warned against darkness, lasciviousness and vanity.31 The allusion to ‘perspicuity’ and measured ‘ornament’ in these comments is addressed directly in the following section. 29 Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age, 97. 30 ‘Tratados de la erudición’, Biblioteca Nacional, MS.1713 (Madrid), fol. 11v. 31 Ibid., fol. 12v: ‘cualquiera destos estilos podrá tener muchas diferencias porque puede ser más apretado o más remiso, pero así de mirar mucho huir los vicios que tiene cada uno semejantes que alguno suele usar por grande el hinchado i espumoso o el áspero demasiadamente i oscuro, por delgado el ínfimo i por florido el lascivo descompuesto i vano’. Rioja signalled the difficulty of identifying any one style of sacred rhetoric, which indicates his awareness of the debates noted by Smith. 744 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 Rioja turned from the genera elocutionis to the use of metaphors. He says that they are normally taken from touch, sight or taste and that ‘si se quiere engrandecer algo se tomarán de los objetos más nobles pero si se quisiere umillar de los más viles.’ (fol. 12v–13r). The preacher is warned to take care not to fall into the vice of expending great efforts in ‘painting’ the dawn, spring flowers, the wind blowing over waters and trees with the intention to persuade and teach, which illustrates the continuation of the earlier discussion of restrained ornament. Rioja went on to argue: [...] el espíritu i vida de las vozes son las cosas, como ellas también su lustre i ornamento, mas la noticia dellas solamente diferencia los ombres; galante cosa es por cierto una pintura que nos muestra con viveza i perfección los cuerpos pero cuán diferente la que nos representa los ánimos! (fol. 13r)32 Rioja clearly advocated verisimilitude in the ‘imitation of nature’, but it is linked to ‘perspicuity’ and a control of ‘ornament’. Furthermore his idea of verisimilitude is not satisfied with the superficial appearance, but seeks to represent the interior dimensions of a person.33 The emphasis on verisimilitude in preaching offers a significant contrast to ekphrastic descriptions of painting, such as Melgarejo’s silva and Paleotti’s theoretical discussion, and these are addressed below. A further dimension to perspicuity is elaborated in Rioja’s discussion of the preacher’s role to explain the meaning of biblical texts. He argued that the preacher should convey the literal message and where necessary explain any cryptic details resulting from allegorical, tropological and anagogical expression. Following this a perspicuous sermon may be understood in the following senses: the use of language suitable for its listeners, the avoidance of unnecessary detail or measured ‘ornament’, verisimilitude or a ‘lifelike imitation’ of subjects, and clear explanation of the conceptual dimensions of a subject. 32 Rioja’s metaphorical use of the verb ‘to paint’ refers to spoken descriptions, but it indicates the close relationship between rhetoric, ekphrasis and painting. 33 Rioja’s awareness of Classical texts on painting criticism may be detected here. Both Gutiérrez and Butrón refer to Xenophon’s Memorabilia, which recorded a series of questions on Painting’s potential to imitate concerning which Socrates asked the painter Parrhasius. Their conversation addressed the following points. Firstly Painting’s ability to ‘represent and reproduce figures high and low, in light and in shadow [...] young and old’; then its aesthetic potential through the combination of ‘the most beautiful details of several [...] to make the whole figure look beautiful’; followed by the expression of mental states such as: ‘[…] nobility […] servility […] prudence […] and vulgarity […] reflected in the face and in the attitudes of the body’. Parrhasius confirmed that all were achieved by painting. Socrates’ fourth and final questions combined an aesthetic and ethical concern asking Parrhasius which he thought ‘most pleasing […] one whose features and bearing reflect a beautiful and good lovable character, or one who is the embodiment of what is ugly and depraved and hateful’. Parrhasius replied, ‘No doubt there is a great difference, Socrates’ (Xenophon, Memorabilia, trans. O. J. Todd [London: Loeb Classical Library, 1968], 233–35). Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 745 Although there are other significant aspects of Rioja’s treatise such as his discussion of the training of preachers, these cannot be addressed here.34 Instead his discussion of ‘perspicuity’ needs to be considered in terms of the theoretical framework provided by Paleotti’s text. On the basis that rhetoric was clearly employed in the discussion of paintings it may be proposed that the four aspects of Rioja’s discussion of ‘perspicuity’ provide criteria that would have informed how he and other spectators viewed and discussed Velázquez’s religious paintings. The extent to which Velázquez’s religious paintings were discussed in terms of the suitability of their ‘visual’ language is hard to gauge. It would seem probable that their emphasis on the ‘imitation of nature’ was considered as suitable for all categories of spectator. Of more importance is the reduced ‘ornament’ and emphasis on verisimilitude seen in all his religious paintings. The paintings of the apostles St Thomas (1618–20) and St Paul (1619–20) are testament to this. In both paintings the detail, or ‘ornament’, is reduced to the minimum required to denote the biblical significance of these figures. St Thomas seen in the act of preaching is framed by his attributes, the book half concealed by his robe and the lance bisected by the picture edge, yet they also add to the work’s verisimilitude. Within the constraints of the genre Velázquez could not depict an audience, but it is alluded to by the open mouth. A spectator such as Rioja would have been struck by Velázquez’s efforts to represent the apostle’s mind. Likewise in the case of the St Paul attention is concentrated on the man, who remains silent, but the book he holds alludes to his epistles. The treatment of the clothing in these paintings evokes Medina’s criticism of preachers, and the Apostles’ appearance represents a visual analogy of what was expected of preachers. The concerns for preachers’ use of language are alluded to by these paintings; the severe and simple style associated with the Bible and the early preachers is signified by the saints’ appearance. Together these paintings may have been seen as visual paradigms of the rhetorical ideals expected in spoken and written sermons. The allusions to language in these two paintings become explicit in Velázquez’s portraits of Mother Jerónima de la Fuente (1620).35 It may be assumed that the patron, the Franciscan convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes in Toledo, dictated the explicit rhetorical terms of the painting, but spectators would have been struck by the contrast of the lively treatment of 34 Rioja’s treatise concluded on the subject of invention and the preacher’s training. He emphasized the importance of the use of historical texts, moral philosophy and ‘arts such as sculpture painting and architecture’ for the ‘pertinent speculation they offer’. ‘Tratados de la erudición’, fol. 17v–18r: ‘de algunas artes como escultura, pintura i arquitectura es razón que se tenga noticia si quiera de lo especulativo para tratar las cosas que dellas se ofrecieren atinadamente […]’. 35 Three versions of this painting exist, two full-length portraits and one half-length copy. The copy in the Museo del Prado is signed 1618, but the scroll has been removed. Fortunately it is intact in the Araoz version. Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 746 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE the nun, making evident her inner commitment to devout action, in contrast to her inscribed beliefs; written in Latin at the top of the painting in capitals is ‘It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of God’ (Lamentations, III, 26) and on the banderole ‘I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear’ (Psalms, XVI, 15). It is probable that the text allowed Velázquez to reduce the ornament to the bare essential and to portray the devout nun’s appearance and the ‘liveliness’ of her ‘mind’. Paleotti’s term ‘delight’ is perhaps not what comes to mind when faced by this exemplar of Tridentine piety, but there seems little doubt she would have instructed and moved her spectators, whether painters, scholars, the simple or the pious. Although the conceptual dimensions of these single figure paintings are limited they make evident how Velázquez’s paintings may be discussed in terms of both a visual and a conceptual perspicuity. The contrast of the two is made all the more apparent in Velázquez’s three multi-figure religious compositions. Seen in terms of visual and conceptual perspicuity, the spectator would have found these works accomplished essays of visual rhetoric. However, these two aspects of ‘perspicuity’ cannot be considered in isolation; the verisimilitude of their appearance serves to guide the spectator to the conceptual themes, and Velázquez’s portrayal of the ‘minds’ of the characters is central to this. In terms of providing conceptual perspicuity, Velázquez’s pair of paintings The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and St John the Evangelist on the Isle of Patmos (c.1619) [Plates 1 & 2] demonstrate a complex compositional strategy. The dual composition has been discussed in the context of the contemporaneous heated debates and demonstrations in Seville regarding the theological status of the Virgin’s Immaculate Conception.36 The theology and biblical exegesis these debates drew on was complex, and no doubt a challenge to preachers to provide clear explanations to their congregations. It may be argued that in the eyes of an erudite spectator Velázquez’s paintings successfully achieved a conceptual ‘perspicuity’ of these complex ideas. The painting of St John provides a literal exposition of anagogical experience and biblical allegory. However, the explanation of its significance is provided in the second work, which is a devotional image rather than an actual biblical scene. The Evangelist’s vision, recorded in Apocalypse, chapter 12, of the Winged Woman threatened by the Dragon was then interpreted as an allegory of the Virgin’s Immaculate Conception. In Visionary experience in the Golden Age of Spanish Art (1995) Victor Stoichita drew attention to the scale given to the saint and his book, in contrast to the vision pressed into the painting’s top left hand corner. He 36 See Suzanne Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1994). Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 747 argued that the accompanying painting, of The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, filled ‘the emptiness of the white page’ of the Evangelist’s text, which may be developed to say that the second painting provides a deallegorization of Saint John the Evangelist’s vision.37 The saint does not look at the actual vision, which may be interpreted as a depiction of an interior mystical vision, yet the direction of the saint’s gaze is significant. It leads us to the second painting. A conclusion drawn by Stoichita in his examination of Spanish religious painting, is that the depiction of the visionary serves ‘as an intermediary […] through which the transcendence is revealed to the spectator’.38 The Evangelist may be understood in this role. Not only does he ‘see or experience’ the original vision but his gaze leads the spectator to the next painting, the theological consequence of the first, and the subject of ardent debate in early seventeenth-century Seville. Velázquez’s two other religious paintings both represent narratives and did not have to engage with such conceptual challenges as have been discussed so far. However, in each of them Velázquez explored the possibility of what Stoichita has termed the ‘intermediary’. In the Adoration of the Magi (1619) not only does the verisimilitude of the treatment of the Holy Family and their devout visitors concentrate attention on the narrative moment, but this is heightened by the restricted use of ‘ornament’. The regal finery is reduced to the minimum and it signals how Velázquez’s image may be read as a ‘perspicuous’ representation of the biblical scene. Within this restricted space Velázquez concentrates the spectator on two visual foci. The red and brown cloaks of the Magi mark a curved space separating them from the Holy Family. The golden caskets they hold punctuate its flowing recession into the picture’s depth, leading the eye to the sunrise, with its symbolic significance. The spectator’s attention is also caught by the Magi’s gaze which leads to the second and principal focus of the painting, the Holy Family. The significance of this painting requires little ‘exegesis’. Nevertheless, Velázquez drew attention to an important conceptual dimension of the scene, which is the importance of vision for the act of adoration. It may be argued that the Magi and their page, framed by their sombre clothes, act as ‘intermediaries’ for the spectator to engage with the scene, seeing the brightly clothed and illuminated Virgin and Child with their eyes. In this case the Magi are both Paleotti’s ‘scholarly’ and ‘pious’ spectators, while the page offers a paradigm of ‘the simple’; the four gazes of these spectators in the act of witnessing the Son of God become an integral element of the painting as a representation of the Holy Family. 37 Victor I. Stoichita, Visionary Experience in the Golden Age of Spanish Art (London: Reaktion, 1995), 113. 38 Ibid., 199. Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 748 BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE Velázquez’s final painting, The Virgin Bestows the Chasuble on St Ildefonso (1622–23), is another representation of anagogical experience. In terms of the use of rhetorical principles the restricted ‘ornament’ is detected in Velázquez’s exclusion of any reference to the location of the image and attention is focused on the mystical event. Earlier paintings of this subject, such as Pedro de Campaña’s Mariscal Altarpiece (1555–56) or Antón Pizzarro’s 1618 illustration of the subject, published in Salazar de Mendoza’s El Glorioso Doctor San Ildefonso (Toledo, 1618), situated the action in Toledo Cathedral.39 The visual ‘perspicuity’ of Velázquez’s portrayal focuses the erudite spectator on the Virgin and the devout saint. In the treatment of the former the austerity of the image is notable; there are no celestial trappings, and her angelic companions appear in a classical guise, rather than divine with wings and haloes. Again, the context of the Marian war is important to understand this representation of the Virgin; as well as being an important Iberian example of a Marian vision, the Virgin is shown rewarding the piety of those who showed devotion to her. St Ildefonso is shown as an exemplar of devotion. However, he may also be considered as an example of the pious spectator, who is concerned primarily with the inner vision. Again, Velázquez’s representation of the gazes of the protagonists is significant. The Virgin is shown looking down on her faithful servant, but the fixed stare of St Ildefonso does not meet hers. He may be seen as waiting patiently for the chasuble to be placed on his shoulders, yet his pose may also be understood as a representation of mystical vision. Like St John the Evangelist he is not shown seeing the vision as an external event but an interior one. Hence this painting contrasts with the depiction of vision in the Adoration by portraying the inner experience of the saint and in this way seeking to provide a more lifelike imitation of body and spirit. Rioja’s text has allowed for a more complex understanding to be developed of the discussion of painting in terms of rhetoric. The concepts of ‘perspicuity’ and ‘ornament’ provide ideological terms that develop our understanding of the ‘imitation of nature’. Our analysis of Velázquez’s paintings has demonstrated that Rioja’s rhetorical principles provide a conceptual framework to discuss not only the paintings’ appearance but also Velázquez’s treatment of their conceptual significance. In the light of the Tridentine view of the painter as preacher it would not seem fanciful to suggest that these ideas and concerns informed the viewing and discussion of the paintings of Velázquez and his contemporaries. However, it is also important to consider the reach of these ideas in Seville amongst Velázquez’s ‘scholar’ spectators. 39 See Juan Miguel Serrera, ‘Velázquez and Sevillian Painting of his Time’, in Velázquez in Seville, 37–43 (p. 38) and Harris, ‘Velázquez, Sevillian Painter of Sacred Subjects’, 45–49 (p. 46) Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ 749 Pacheco’s possession of a copy of Rioja’s manuscript indicates the dissemination of the debates concerning preaching in Seville, but as has been demonstrated they were already widely known. Furthermore, I would draw attention to other channels of the dissemination of rhetorical principles relevant to the discussion of ‘images’. Treatises on poetics, the Art of Memory, ekphrasis in poetry and prose, and ‘spiritual exercises’, examined in conjunction with the debates on preaching, reveal how ideas derived from theories of rhetoric, such as perspicuitas, informed intellectual and ideological concepts of images, the imagination and vision in GoldenAge Iberian culture.40 Examination of these texts reveals the diffusion of the ideas discussed in the course of this article, and they signal the further complexity of Sevillian culture and Velázquez’s paintings. A final consideration is Velázquez’s own awareness of these debates. Pacheco claimed that a motivation for Velázquez’s 1622 journey to Madrid was to visit El Escorial, which he would have known from Sigüenza’s text or else the descriptions of Pacheco himself.41 Hence along with the evidence examined so far it is probable that he was schooled in the rhetorical dimensions of painting criticism; in addition, the analysis of the paintings suggests that theoretical principles of rhetoric informed not only Velázquez’s theoretical understanding of painting but also the production of paintings. Aside from theoretical considerations, Velázquez’s paintings reveal him to be an accomplished visual orator, or preacher, and it was his accomplished visual rhetoric that would have gained him renown in Seville and Madrid. Therefore it may be concluded there is some substance to Palomino’s claim, alluding to Alberti’s statement given above, that Velázquez ‘gained much with which to embellish his compositions’ from his acquaintance with ‘poets and orators’.42 40 For discussion of these themes see: McKim-Smith, ‘La técnica Sevillana de Velázquez’; Javier Portús Pérez, Pintura y pensamiento en la España de Lope de Vega (Hondarribia-Guipúzcoa: Nerea, 1999); Fumaroli, ‘Ut pictura rhetorica divina’; Roland Barthes, Sade/Fourier/Loyola, trans. R. Miller (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1989); Roe, ‘Velázquez’s “Imitation” of Nature’. 41 Pacheco had travelled there in 1611 as well as to Córdoba, Toledo, Madrid and El Pardo. 42 Antonio Palomino, Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, trans. Nina Mallory (New York: Cambridge U. P., 1987), 143. BSS, LXXXII (2005) JEREMY ROE Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 750 Plate 1 Diego Velázquez, The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, c.1619, oil on canvas, 135 x 101.6 cm. Reproduced by courtesy of the National Gallery, London. Downloaded By: [Swets Content Distribution] At: 12:13 16 October 2008 VELÁZQUEZ’S ‘TRUTHFUL IMITATION OF NATURE’ Plate 2 Diego Velázquez, St John the Evangelist on the Isle of Patmos, c.1619, oil on cavas, 135 x 102.2 cm. Reproduced by courtesy of the National Gallery, London. 751