Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T00:28:01.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethics and Economies of Art in Renaissance Spain: Felipe de Guevara’s Comentario de la pintura y pintores antiguos*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Alejandra Giménez-Berger
Alejandra Giménez-Berger*
Affiliation:
Wittenberg University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Comentario de la pintura y pintores antiguos (Commentary on Painting and Antique Painters) by the humanist Felipe de Guevara stands as the first art treatise of its type produced in Renaissance Spain. Critical studies underscore the reliance on ancient texts in spite of significant divergences from the sources. Philological studies of near-contemporary texts and a close reading of the author’s extant writings provide an alternative framework for understanding these transformations. Through the appropriation of ancient texts, Guevara calls for the practical overhauling of the Spanish artistic system. The text addresses the art of painting as having both transcendental and intrinsic values, focusing on its formative capabilities and virtue ethics as the most important for the former, and its role in the larger Spanish economy for the latter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , Spring 2014 , pp. 79 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article developed through a series of presentations at meetings of the Comité International d’Historie de l’Art, the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, and the Renaissance Society of America. I am grateful to the many scholars who expressed interest in the subject and asked the questions that led me in this direction. Some of the ideas I present here stem from my dissertation; I owe special thanks to Tracy Cooper, Marcia Hall, Sheila ffolliott, and Therese Dolan for their mentorship and encouragement. I benefited greatly from Ken Irwin’s vast knowledge of library material, Tanya Maus’s and Michael Mattison’s comments on early versions of the manuscript, Corie Cappelucci’s enthusiastic research assistance, and the thoughtful suggestions of the blind reviewers. Adam Berger deserves a special mention for listening to my ideas, and Victor Jortack for his insight on translation practices. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Finally, I express my gratitude to Wittenberg University’s Faculty Development Board for supporting my research.

1

Guevara, 1788, 103. All subsequent quotations will be from this edition.

References

Allende-Salazar, Juan. “Don Felipe de Guevara, coleccionista y escritor de arte del siglo XVI.” Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologí. 1 (1925): 189–92.Google Scholar
Becker, Jochen. “Beholding the Beholder: The Reception of ‘Dutch’ Painting.” Argumentation 7 (1993): 67–87.10.1007/BF00735043CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benet, Rafael. “Pórtico en defensa de Don Felipe de Guevara.” In Felipe de Guevara. Comentarios de la pintura. Segunda edición reproducida de la edición príncipe, ed. Benet, Rafael, 1–57. Barcelona, 1948.Google Scholar
Boscán, Juan. Libro llamado El Cortesano traduzido agora nuevamente en nuestro vulgar Castellano por Bosca. 6th ed. Seville, 1549.Google Scholar
Bosing, Walter. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516: Between Heaven and Hell. Köln, 2004.Google Scholar
Bouza, Fernando. Locos, enanos y hombres de placer en la corte de los Austrias. Madrid, 1991.Google Scholar
Cremades, Checa, Fernando, . “Un Programa Imperialista: El Túmulo Erigido en Alcalá de Henares en Memoria de Carlos V.” Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museo. 82.2 (1979): 369–79.Google Scholar
Çinar, Alev, and Bender, Thomas. Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City. Minneapolis, 2007.Google Scholar
Collantes Terán, José Miguel. “Felipe de Guevara Humanista: ‘Ostentador de sobrados títulos para ocupar un lugar de privilegio’ en la Cultura Hispana del Siglo XVI.” Anales de Historia del Arte, n.s., 10 (2000): 55–70.Google Scholar
Davis, James C. Pursuit of Power: Venetian Ambassadors’ Reports on Spain, Turkey, and France in the Age of Philip II, 1560–160. New York, 1970.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Charles. “Sicut in utrem aquas maris: Jerome Bosch’s Prolegomenon to the Garden of Earthly Delights .” ML. 119.1. Italian Issue Supplement: Studia Humanitatis: Essays in Honor of Salvatore Camporeale (2004): S247–S270.Google Scholar
Faus, Miguel. “Imágenes de Poder y Evocaciones de la Memoria. Usos y funciones del retrato en la corte de Felipe II.” In Felipe II. Un Monarca y su Época. Un Príncipe del Renacimiento, ed. Cremades, Fernando Checa, 203–28. Madrid, 1998.Google Scholar
Faus, Miguel. “Entre el ‘divino’ Apelles y el ‘cornudo’ Pitas Payas. La imagen del pintor en la España de Carlos V.” In Carolus, ed. Cremades, Fernando Checa, 103–19. Madrid, 2000.Google Scholar
Furió Ceriol, Fadrique. Raison et al térité chez Fadrique Furió Ceriol philosophe politique espagnol du XVIe siècle. Introduction, edition, traduction du Consejos y Consejeros del Príncipe suivies de notes et de documents inédits. Ed. Mechoulan, Henri. Paris, 1973.Google Scholar
Giménez-Berger, Alejandra. “Castiglione, Portraiture, and Performance at the Court of Philip II.” PhD diss., Temple University, 2007.Google Scholar
Porta, Giovanni della. Giovan Battista Della Porta. Della fisionomia dell’uom. Ed. Cicognani, Mario. Parma, 1971.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Ernst. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representatio. Princeton, 1969.Google Scholar
Gonzalo Carbó, Ana. “Felipe de Guevara. La Teoría de la Imitación en los Comentarios de la pintura.” D’Art: Revista del Departament d’Historia de l’Arte, n.s., 13 (1987): 89–106.Google Scholar
Guevara, Felipe de. Comentario de la pintura y pintores antiguos. Prado MS/8. Biblioteca del Museo del Prado, Madrid.Google Scholar
Guevara, Felipe de. Comentarios de la pintura, que escribió Don Felipe de Guevara, Gentil-hombre de la boca del Señor Emperador Carlos Quinto, Rey de Españ. Ed. Ponz, Antonio. Madrid, 1788.Google Scholar
Koerner, Joseph. “Impossible Objects: Bosch’s Realism.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetic. 46 (2004): 73–97.Google Scholar
Marchi, Neil de, and van Miegroet, Hans J.. “Art, Value, and Market Practices in the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century.” Art Bulleti. 76.3 (1994): 451–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matilla, Tascón, Antonio, . “Felipe II adquiere pinturas del Bosco y Patinir.” Goy. 203 (1988): 258–61.Google Scholar
Meller, Peter. “Physiognomical Theory in Renaissance Heroic Portraits.” In The Renaissance and Mannerism, ed. Rubin, Ida E., 53–69. Princeton, 1963.Google Scholar
Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino. Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España. 3 vols. Madrid, 1883–89.Google Scholar
Micó, José María. “La Época del Renacimiento y del Barroco.” In Historia de la Traducción en España, ed. Francisco Lafarga and Luis Pegenaute, 175–208. Salamanca, 2004.Google Scholar
Middlebrook, Leah. Imperial Lyric: New Poetry and New Subjects in Early Modern Spain. University Park, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mora, Gloria. “Origen de los Estudios Numismáticos en España: el manuscrito perdido de Felipe de Guevara y otros tratados del siglo XVI.” In XIII Congreso Internacional de Numismática, Madrid, 2003: Actas, ed. Alfaro, Carmen, Marcos, Carmen, and Otero, Paloma, 77–83. Madrid, 2005.Google Scholar
Morreale, Margherita. Castiglione y Boscán: el ideal cortesano en el renacimiento español. Madrid, 1959.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Francisco. Arte de la Pintur. Ed. Francisco Javier Sánchez Canton. Madrid, 1956.Google Scholar
Philostratus, Lucius Flavius. Filostrato Lemnio, Della vita di Apollonio Tianeo. Trans. Francesco Baldelli. Florence, 1549.Google Scholar
Philostratus, Lucius Flavius. The Life of Apollonius of Tiana, The Epistles of Apollonius and The Treatise of Eusebiu. Trans. F. C. Conybeare. London, 1989.Google Scholar
Pigman, George W. III. Imitation and the Renaissance Sense of the Past: The Reception of Erasmus’ Ciceronianus. Pasadena, 1979. http://authors.library.caltech.edu/14638/1/HumsWP-0030.pdf.Google Scholar
Román, Isabel. “Antonio Ponz y la erudición útil.” In Antonio Ponz (1725–1792). Coloquio hispano-alemán organizado a la Biblioteca Ducal de Wolfenbüttel (3 y 4 de diciembre de 1992) con motivo del segundo centenario de su muerte, ed. Hans Joachim Lope, 73–85. Frankfurt, 1995.Google Scholar
Sánchez, Cantón, Javier, Francisco. Los Pintores de Cámara de los Reyes de Españ. Madrid, 1916.Google Scholar
Sánchez, Cantón, Javier, Francisco. Fuentes Literarias para la Historia del Arte Españo. 5 vols. Madrid, 1923.Google Scholar
Shearman, John. Manierism. Trans. Justo González Beramendi. Madrid, 1984.Google Scholar
Silver, Larry. Peasant Scenes and Landscapes: The Rise of Pictorial Genres in the Antwerp Art Marke. Philadelphia, 2006.10.9783/9780812207439CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serrano, Vaquero, Carmen, María del. En el Entorno del Maestro Álvar Gómez. Pedro del Campo, María de Mendoza y los Guevar. Ciudad Real, 1996.Google Scholar
Vázquez, Dueñas, Elena, . “El manuscrito del Comentario de la pintura y pintores antiguos de Felipe de Guevara en el Prado.” Boletín del Museo del Prad. 27.45 (2009): 33–43.Google Scholar
Vitruvius, . The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Polli. Trans. Gwilt, Joseph. London, 1826.Google Scholar