Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

(lack of) visual representation of black slaves in Spanish golden age painting

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1470184042000236251

1470-1847

Carmen Fracchia,

Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes See the comprehensive work on Spanish slavery by the historian Franco Silva (1979 Franco Silva, A (1979) La esclavitud en Sevilla y su tierra a fines de la Edad Media Diputación Provincial de Sevilla, Seville [Google Scholar]) based on ground‐breaking publications by Charles Verlinden, Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Vicenta Cortés Alonso and Jacques Heers. For the most updated historiography of the study of slavery in Early Modern Spain from a regional perspective, see the excellent work by Martín Casares (2000 Martín Casares, A (2000) La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI: Género, raza y religión Editorial Universidad de Granada, Diputación Provincial de Granada, Granada [Google Scholar]). See also Pike (1972 Pike R (1972) Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY [Google Scholar], pp. 143–144). See Martín Casares (2000 Martín Casares, A (2000) La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI: Género, raza y religión Editorial Universidad de Granada, Diputación Provincial de Granada, Granada [Google Scholar], Chapter 5). See Domínguez Ortiz in Morales et al. (eds), II (1999 Morales, A. J. et al. (1999) Velázquez y Sevilla: Estudios II, Aldeasa, Seville [Google Scholar], pp. 20–21). See also Domínguez Ortiz (1960 Domínguez Ortiz, A (1960) Política y hacienda de Felipe IV Editorial de Derecho Financiero, Madrid [Google Scholar], pp. 220–222; 1971 Domínguez Ortiz, A (1971) The Golden Age of Spain: 1516–1619 Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London [Google Scholar], pp. 162–172, and 1987 Domínguez Ortiz, A (1987) Los extranjeros en la vida española durante el siglo XVII y otros artículos Diputación de Sevilla, Seville [Google Scholar], pp. 245–261). Some of the events responsible for the dramatic decrease of the population were the expulsion of over 30,000 moriscos from 1609 to 1614; the death of 46% of the population as a result of the 1640 plague; and the loss of Portugal. See also Perry (1993 Perry ME (1993) Ni espada rota ni mujer que trota. Mujer y desorden social en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro trans. M. Fortuny Minguella, Crítica, Barcelona [Google Scholar], pp. 12–13). For the history of the kitchen paintings, see López Rey (1963 López Rey, J (1963) Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of his Oeuvre Faber & Faber, London [Google Scholar], pp. 33, 127–128; 1996 López Rey, J (1996) Velázquez: Painter of Painters Taschen, Cologne [Google Scholar], pp. 33, 38, 41); Mulcahy (1988 Mulcahy R (1988) Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin [Google Scholar], pp. 79–82); Davies and Harris (1996 Davies, D. & Harris, E. (eds) (1996) Velázquez in Seville National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh [Google Scholar], pp. 134); Morales et al. (eds), II (1999 Morales, A. J. et al. (1999) Velázquez y Sevilla: Estudios II, Aldeasa, Seville [Google Scholar], pp. 88–91, 112–133, 118–119). For the portrait of Pareja, see Rousseau (1971 Rousseau, T. (1971). ‘Juan de Pareja by Diego Velázquez: an appreciation of the portrait’. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 29: pp. 449–451 [Google Scholar], pp. 448–78) and Brown (1986 Brown J (1986) Velázquez: Painter and Courtier Yale University Press, New Haven and London [Google Scholar], p. 202). See for example the Adoration of the Magi (Prado Museum), executed by Velázquez in 1619. According to Devisse and Mollat (1979 Devisse, J. & Mollat, M. (eds) (1979) The Image of the Black in Western Art II, Office du Livre, Menil Foundation, Lausanne [Google Scholar], pp. 134, 156, 161–164), the black associated with the Orient was already an iconographic commonplace in France and Germany before it appeared in Spain c. 1470, in the central panel of the Adoration of the Magi triptych by Hans Memling on the altar of Charles V's chapel in the castle of Aceca, near Aranjuez, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. See also Wood 2000 Wood M (2000) Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America: 1780–1865 Manchester University Press, Manchester [Google Scholar]. pp. 217–218. On the concept of the role and power of the gaze in visual representations see Bryson (1983 Bryson N (1983) Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze Macmillan, London [Google Scholar]). See also his analysis of the overlooked in Spanish paintings. (1990). On the cultural functions of portraiture see Leppert (1996 Leppert R (1996) Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery Westview, Oxford [Google Scholar]) and Brilliant (1991 Brilliant R (1991) Portraiture Reaktion, London [Google Scholar]). See Velázquez's bodegones such as Lunch, the Waterseller, and Old Woman Frying Eggs. See Morales et al. (eds), II (1999 Morales, A. J. et al. (1999) Velázquez y Sevilla: Estudios II, Aldeasa, Seville [Google Scholar], pp. 77–91, 118–123). For Golden Age political thought, see Martín Casares (2000 Martín Casares, A (2000) La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI: Género, raza y religión Editorial Universidad de Granada, Diputación Provincial de Granada, Granada [Google Scholar], Chapter 2). See Franco Silva (1979 Franco Silva, A (1979) La esclavitud en Sevilla y su tierra a fines de la Edad Media Diputación Provincial de Sevilla, Seville [Google Scholar], p. 253); Perry (1993 Perry ME (1993) Ni espada rota ni mujer que trota. Mujer y desorden social en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro trans. M. Fortuny Minguella, Crítica, Barcelona [Google Scholar], pp. 86, 290–292); Martín Casares (2000 Martín Casares, A (2000) La esclavitud en la Granada del siglo XVI: Género, raza y religión Editorial Universidad de Granada, Diputación Provincial de Granada, Granada [Google Scholar], pp. 313–318). See Perry (1993 Perry ME (1993) Ni espada rota ni mujer que trota. Mujer y desorden social en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro trans. M. Fortuny Minguella, Crítica, Barcelona [Google Scholar], pp. 73–74); Margarita Ortega and Rosa M. Capel in Aguado et al. (eds) (1994 Aguado, A. M. et al. (eds) (1994) Textos para la historia de las mujeres en España Cátedra, Madrid [Google Scholar]); Vigil (1994 Vigil M (1994) La vida de las mujeres en los siglos XVI y XVII Siglo XXI, Madrid [first published in 1986] [Google Scholar]). For the nature of jobs carried out by female servants, their recruitment and treatment, and for the conditions demanded of their owners, see Margarita Ortega and Rosa M. Capel in Aguado et al. (eds) (1994 Aguado, A. M. et al. (eds) (1994) Textos para la historia de las mujeres en España Cátedra, Madrid [Google Scholar], p. 269). New documents dismiss Palomino's claim that Pareja was born in Seville. He was born in Antequera in the province of Málaga c. 1605–06 and died in Madrid in 1670. See Montagu (1983 Montagu, J. (1983). ‘Velázquez Marginalia: His slave Juan de Pareja and his illegitimate son Antonio’. Burlington Magazine, vol. 125: pp. 683–685 [Google Scholar], pp. 683–685). See Franco Silva (1979 Franco Silva, A (1979) La esclavitud en Sevilla y su tierra a fines de la Edad Media Diputación Provincial de Sevilla, Seville [Google Scholar], pp. 300–302); Sánchez Quevedo and Morán Turina (1999 Sánchez Quevedo, I Morán Turina, M (1999) Pintura y sociedad en la España de Velázquez Akal, Madrid [Google Scholar], pp. 104–105); Gállego et al. (eds) (1990 Gállego, J. et al. (eds) (1990) Velázquez Museo del Prado, Madrid [Google Scholar], p. 387). Most painters owned one or two slaves: e.g. Alejo Fernández (c. 1475–1545), who was also a slave‐trader; the court painter and art writer Vicente Carducho (c. 1576/8–1638); Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617/18–82), and the art writer and painter Francisco Pacheco (1564–1644), who was Velázquez's father‐in‐law. For the analysis of this legend, see Stoichita (1999 Stoichita VI (1999) ‘El retrato del esclavo Juan de Pareja: Semejanza y conceptismo’ in Fundación Amigos del Prado (eds) Velázquez Galaxia Gutemberg, Barcelona [Google Scholar], pp. 367–381) and my forthcoming article, “Velázquez's Black Leg: Juan de Pareja and the Hardest Graft of All”. Some of the paintings by the slave‐painter are recorded. See Palomino (1947 Palomino de Castro y Velasco, A (1947 [1724]) El Museo Pictórico y Escala Optica III, Aguilar, Madrid [Google Scholar], III, p. 128); Gaya Nuño (1957 Gaya, Nuño, JA. (1957). ‘Revisiones sexcentistas: Juan de Pareja’. Archivo Español de Arte, vol. 30: pp. 271–285 [Google Scholar], pp. 271–285). Additional informationNotes on contributorsCarmen Fracchia Correspondence to: Carmen Fracchia, Birkbeck College, University of London, School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture, 43 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1H 0PD, UK. Correspondence to: Carmen Fracchia, Birkbeck College, University of London, School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture, 43 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1H 0PD, UK.