ZURBARÁN: Master of Spain’s Golden Age

Exhibition

The Bozar Centre for Fine Arts,Rue Ravenstein 33, 1000 Brussels

Wed 29 January – Sun 25 May 2014

Santa Casilda, c.1635, oil on canvas, 171 x 107 cms, Museo Thyssen Bornemisza Madrid

A Cup of Water and a Rose, c.1630, oil on canvas, 21 x 30 cms, National Gallery London

For more information see http://www.bozar.be/activity.php?id=13203i

“Zurbarán,” first shown at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, and now showing at Bozar in Brussels until 25 May 2014, is the first show dedicated to the artist since the landmark publication of the first volume of Odile Delenda’s catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work in 2009, which identified 286 paintings as being by his own hand. Expertly curated by Ignacio Cano Rivero and Gabriele Finaldi, this skillfully selected and lucidly presented show of 49 pieces offers a comprehensive survey of Zurbarán’s career and is studded with masterpieces.

Zurbarán’s father was a textile merchant in the village of Fuente de Cantos in southern Spain, where the artist was born in 1598. Francisco was apprenticed to a now forgotten local painter in Seville from 1614 to 1617, during which time he met Velázquez, who became a lifelong friend. But whereas the latter forged a career in the courts of Madrid and Rome, becoming the leading portrait painter of his age, Zurbarán had a vocation for religious painting (and a deep knowledge of Spain’s mystical thought and literature).

Having moved to Llerena, in his native province of Badajoz, in 1622, the artist received a commission for 15 canvases for his birthplace. By the mid 1620s he was also sending cycles of works to Seville, where in 1629 he was invited by the city council to take up residence and where he would spend most of the rest of his life.

Although Zurbarán never set foot outside Spain, by the time he was training as a painter Caravaggio’s work was well known there. But whatever lessons Zurbarán learned from Caravaggio, his own paintings, not to mention his subject matter, remained distinct from the outset, not least in the intense spirituality with which he infused his images.

The exhibition continues roughly chronologically, but also according to themes: “First Major Commissions,” “Visions and Ecstasies,” “Still-lifes,” “The Mystical in the Everyday,” “Passion and Compassion,” “Works for the Court and the New World” and “Last Years: Madrid.”

Zurbarán’s vibrant still-lifes have been a key element in stimulating the rediscovery of this artist in modern times, though he did only a handful of independent works in this genre. Two of the most celebrated, “A Cup of Water and a Rose” from the National Gallery in London, and “Still-life” from the Prado in Madrid, are on display here. The pious message of these pieces tends to be overlooked by modern viewers. For Zurbarán’s contemporaries, the rose in the National Gallery picture, for instance, would have had clear associations with the Virgin Mary, and the white cup with purity and the Immaculate Conception.

These still-lifes were evidently popular in the artist’s own times, as he produced several versions of some of them. And beautifully executed still-life elements play an important emblematic part in many of his other paintings — from skulls, flowers and bowls of fruit to the brilliantly lit earthenware jug, bread, olives and radishes, representing the eucharist and Christ’s humility, in “Supper at Emmaus,” on loan from the Museo Nacional de San Carlos in Mexico City.

The artist’s studio in Seville produced a large number of canvases specifically for export to the New World. These were typically sold at the annual fair in Portobelo, Panama, and most ended up in Peru, where many can still be found. A high proportion of these pictures, executed by Zurbarán’s assistants, were of Biblical patriarchs.

By the time Zurbarán was in his 50s, Seville was suffering an economic crisis as a result of a diminution in trade with America and of the wars in Europe, further worsened by a plague in 1649, to which he lost his son Juan, a promising still-life painter. He also found himself challenged by a new generation of artists, above all Murillo.

In 1658 Zurbarán moved to Madrid, where he remained until his death in 1664. As the last two rooms of the Ferrara show reveal, his style and palette underwent radical changes there, particularly under the influence of Raphael, whose works were by then well represented in the Royal Collection.

Extracted from review by RODERICK CONWAY MORRIS The New York Times Published: October 23, 2013

El Greco Conference – Toledo 19-23 May 2014

The Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Marañón, Toledo

El Greco: works and places

This conference will look in detail at El Greco’s art and at the places where he lived and worked. Leading experts will be delivering their lectures in situ with the artist’s works and Toledo will be hosting many related exhibitions and events to mark the anniversary.

Contributers: Mark A. Roglan, Juan A. García Castor, Fernando Checa Cremades, Fernando Marías, Ángel Aterido, Palma Martínez, María Cruz de Carlos, Leticia Ruíz Gómez, Gabriele Finaldi, Alicia Cámara and Araceli Fernández.

Deadline for registration: 28 February 2014

For full details see the following links

http://www.ortegaygasset.es/noticias/ampliada/981/curso-internacional–las-obras-y-lugares-de-el-greco

http://www.ortegaygasset.es/fog/ver/726/programas-de-postgrado/cursos-de-postgrado/las-obras-y-lugares-de-el-greco

Folleto Curso El Greco english – please print this leaflet and put it on your noticeboard

ARTES Symposium & Lecture to celebrate 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco

Burial of the Count of Orgaz, San Tomas, Toledo — The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, Santo Tomé, Toledo

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco, ARTES will be holding a Symposium & Lecture at the Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Sq, London SW1W 9AN, 3.30pm – 7.30pm, Friday 28th February 2014

The symposium starts at 3.30pm and will be followed at 6.30pm by a special ARTES lecture given by Professor Fernando Marías, curator of the forthcoming exhibition of El Greco’s paintings in Toledo, entitled Was El Greco a Spanish Painter? Challenging a Myth, Reading El Greco’s Documents and Writings

Entrance for the symposium is £15, or £6 for ARTES/Instituto Cervantes members(or join us instead! £35/year, or £20 for students/under 25s/JSAs). Entrance for the lecture is free. If you would like to attend, please contact Morlin Ellis at artesiberia@gmail.com

ARTES would like to thank the Embassy of Spain and the Instituto Cervantes for their kind and generous support of this event

PROVISIONAL TIMETABLE

3.30: Welcome, Dr Tom Nickson (Chair, ARTES)

3.35: Opening remarks, Sir John Elliott, FBA (Honorary President, ARTES)

3.45: Dr Hilary Macartney (University of Glasgow): Portrait of a Lady: the Reception of the “Lady in a Fur Wrap” in the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Glasgow

4.15: Prof David Davies (Curator, National Gallery El Greco exhibition, 2004): El Greco, the Painter/Philosopher

4.45: tea/coffee & biscuits

5.15: Susan Wilson (artist): La Joven Enferma y El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz

5.45: discussion

6.30: Prof Fernando Marías (Curator, El Greco of Toledo, 2014): Was El Greco a Spanish Painter? Challenging a Myth, Reading El Greco’s Documents and Writings (open to all)

7.30: drinks reception

Call for Papers: Theorizing the Spiritual Past: Critical Approaches to Early Iberian Hagiography

Theorizing the Spiritual Past: Critical Approaches to Early Iberian Hagiography College of St Hild and St Bede, Durham, 7‒8 July 2014

Over the last decade there has been a striking upsurge in the volume of critical interest in Iberian hagiography in all of its manifold forms. In painting and the fine arts through to poetic and narrative treatments composed in Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese, the legacies of Christ, Mary, and the saints have been approached from a number of perspectives and subjected to detailed critical scrutiny. This work has been informed by a series of theoretical approaches, from issues of gendered identity in the analysis of Mary and the typology of female sanctity, through to questions of corporeality and the extent to which the expression and experience of popular piety is rooted in the body. This conference, which focuses specifically on the application of theoretical and methodological approaches to analysis, asks what scholars of early Iberian hagiography can bring to the analysis of the sacred past and how the study of the discipline can be taken forward innovatively in the future. It seeks in particular to explore interdisciplinary methodologies and the ways in which they intersect with broader discourses in other branches of research.

Proposals are invited for 30-minute papers on any theoretically-informed aspect of Iberian hagiography. Titles and brief abstracts (of no more than 200 words) should be sent to the conference organizer before 7 April 2014.

For further information, please contact:
Dr Andy Beresford
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Durham University
Elvet Riverside
New Elvet
Durham DH1 3JT
United Kingdom
(a.m.beresford@durham.ac.uk)

The Embassy of Spain invites ARTES members to Lecture on Richard Hamilton & Pop Art in Spain

The Embassy of Spain is kindly inviting ARTES members to a Lecture to be held at the Luis Vives hall at the Embassy in 39 Chesham Place, London SW1X 8SB on Wed 26 Feb 2014 at 6.30pm. Entitled Some Notes on Richard Hamilton & Pop Art in Spain 1960-1976, it will be given by Dr Teresa Millet of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art. If you would like to attend please either contact the Embassy direct on the email given above or contact Morlin at artesiberia@gmail.com. Please note photographic ID will be needed for entry.

Call for Papers: ‘Representations of Violence and Ethics in Ibero-American Cultures’

Conference to be held on Friday 9th May 2014 at the University of Manchester.

For further information please see: http://conferencerveiac.wordpress.com/

We invite colleagues to send an abstract (max. 300 words) for a twenty-minute paper, along with a brief biographical note, by Moday 31^st March 2014 to conference.rveiac@gmail.com.

Convenors: Ignacio Aguiló (ignacio.aguilo@manchester.ac.uk) and Miquel Pomar-Amer (miquel.pomar-amer@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk)

This conference is generously supported by Language-Based Area Studies, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures (University of Manchester).

_______________

This international conference aims to examine the way in which literature and the arts have represented violence in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula since the 1960s, with a particular interest in the ethical aspects that such a representation entails. Our aim is to analyse how ethics and aesthetics interact in the portrayal of traumatic events. How can artistic representations contribute to processes of mourning? Does art contribute to the perpetuation and trivialisation of violence? Where are the limits of the morally acceptable? What is the role of artistic representations in the face of atrocity?

All of these questions are particularly relevant considering that 2014 marks the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Atocha bombings in Madrid and the twentieth anniversary of the attack on the AMIA bombing that targeted the Jewish community in Buenos Aires.

Proposals are invited for papers which explore some of these suggested topics – although they are not exclusive:

– Mourning and post-traumatic reactions

– Monuments and commemorations

– Modes of representation: the abject, the mythical, the allegorical, the grotesque, the spectacular

– Racial and religious-based violence

– Gender violence

– Violence and parody/irony

– Violence and reception studies

– Violence and consent

– Forgetting/forgiving

– ‘Unethical’ representations: challenges to the ethical constraints

Export block for Alonso Sánchez Coello’s Portrait of Don Diego, son of King Philip II of Spain (1577)

07 January 2014

Alonso Sánchez Coello, Don Diego, oil on canvas

A portrait of Prince Don Diego (1575 – 1582), who died at the age of seven and was the son of King Philip II of Spain, has had a temporary export bar placed on it to provide a last chance to keep it in the UK. Unless a matching offer of £4,250,000 can be raised, the painting will be exported.

The portrait of Don Diego, son of King Philip II of Spain (1577) painted by Alonso Sánchez Coello, is a rare example of Spanish court portraiture of a child from this period, and is credited with having being an important precedent for Velázquez who was to paint many portraits of the Spanish Royal children during his time as court artist for King Philip IV.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey took the decision to defer granting an export licence for the painting following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by Arts Council England. The RCEWA made their recommendation on the grounds that it is of outstanding aesthetic importance, and that it is of outstanding significance for the study of Spanish court portraiture in the sixteenth century and the history of the Hapsburg monarchy.

Alonso Sánchez Coello was the most important Spanish portrait painter of the second half of the sixteenth century. He entered the service of members of the Spanish Royal family in 1552, working for the widowed Infanta Juana before being appointed official court artist by King Philip II in 1560. Although a prolific painter, there are relatively few surviving Coello portraits, mainly due to the fires in the palace of El Pardo (1604) and in the old Alcazar de Madrid (1734) which destroyed many of his works.

Painted in Coello’s customary meticulous style and in excellent condition, this portrait of the infant Don Diego is memorable for its combination of dignified formality befitting the heir to the Spanish throne, and a two-year old child’s natural inclination to play, as indicated by the hobby horse and the glimpse of garden beyond the balcony.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

“It would be a great shame if this remarkable work, one of very few surviving royal portraits by Coello, was to leave the UK permanently. There are very few Coello paintings in UK public collections, so I hope a matching offer to keep this work in the UK can be found.”
RCEWA Chairman Lord Inglewood said:

“This is an evocative and remarkable survival of Spanish Court portraiture, painted by a virtuoso artist at a time when England and Spain’s fortunes were closely interlinked, first by Mary Tudor’s marriage to Phillip II, and then by her half sister Elizabeth’s protestant England’s drawn out squabble with Roman Catholic Spain.”

The decision on the export licence application for the painting will be deferred for a period ending on 5 March 2014 inclusive. This period may be extended until 5 July 2014 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the painting is made at the recommended price of £4,250,000 (net of VAT.)
Notes to editors

1. Organisations or individuals interested in purchasing the painting should contact RCEWA on 0845 300 6200.

2. Details of the painting are as follows:

Portrait of Don Diego, son of King Philip of Spain II
Alonso Sánchez Coello
Oil on canvas
108cm x 88.2cm

3. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, serviced by Arts Council England, which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria.

4. Arts Council England champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. Between 2010 and 2015, it will invest £1.9 billion of public money from government and an estimated £1.1 billion from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. http://www.artscouncil.org.uk

5. Images can be found at – http://www.gov.uk/dcms http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedcms

Michael Jacobs, 1952-2014

The Hispanic world has lost one of its greats. Michael Jacobs, who died from cancer on 9 January 2014 aged 61, was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable writer with an endearing personality, in the tradition of George Borrow, Richard Ford and Gerald Brenan.

Michael had an extraordinary ability to connect, and both his art historical and his travel books are full of fresh, lively and entertaining insights. He had a lifelong passion for Spain, and settled in the village of Frailes in the Provincía de Jaen in 1999, and there he soaked up and observed the people, atmosphere, sights and food of Andalucía, and wrote about them. Frailes later became his base when he travelled further afield to South and Central America.

He was born on 15 October 1952 in Genoa, Italy, to an Anglo-Irish father, and an Italian mother, who had acted with a Sicilian theatre company in the last years of the Second World War, and from whom Michael developed a passion for food. He was educated at Westminster School, and went to the Courtauld Institute, which was then in Portman Square and under the Directorship of Anthony Blunt, to study for his BA and later his PhD in the early 1970s.

Michael was an encyclopaedic scholar but never a conventional one. A career spent in the confines of a museum or an art history department was not for him (though he was a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of Glasgow University); but he was the author of 24 books. His restless curiosity led him to write early guides to art and artists of the British Isles, and artist colonies in Europe and America, before moving on to travel books about places as varied as Provence, Czechoslovakia, Budapest, Romania, Barcelona, Madrid, Andalucía, the Alhambra and the Camino de Santiago. He translated Golden Age plays, and began to write more personal books on Spain beginning with Between Hopes and Memories (1994), which caused the newspaper ABC to call him ‘the George Borrow of the High-Speed Train Era’. El País praised him for ‘going beyond the clichés and giving a portrait of the real country’. The Factory of Light (2003) a picaresque memoir written in and about the small village of Frailes, established him as a local celebrity in Andalucia. He participated in conferences, radio interviews, lectured on specialist tours, and took part in the Alhambra Hay Festivals and he made many local and international friends among writers, photographers and gastronomers.

In 2006, Michael’s interest was ignited by letters from his Jewish grandfather from Hull, who worked in Chile and Bolivia with the Andean railways, to his grandmother. Michael followed his grandfather Bethel’s footsteps, and wrote Ghost Train through the Andes. In a major journey in 2010, Michael intertwined geography, history and 19th and scary 21st century revolutionaries together in The Andes. His last book, The Robber of Memories (2013), was a skilful and poignant travelogue down the Magdalena river in Colombia, woven in with the experience of his parents’ loss of memory from dementia and Alzheimers, and also the similar plight of his literary hero, Gabríel García Márquez.

He loved cooking and entertaining, and was a member of the Andalucían Academy of Gastronomy, and was the first foreigner to be made a knight of The Very Noble and Illustrious Order of the Wooden Spoon. He once commented that the food of Spain was the story of Spain. Several of his book launches were held at the restaurant, Moro, in Exmouth Market whose owners, Sam and Sam Clark, were good friends.

Shortly before his death Michael married his long time partner, and first reader of his books, Jackie Rae, and he was working on a book on Velázquez’ Las Meninas for Granta.

A measure of how much he was admired and loved in Spain, was that within two days of his death, obituaries were published in El Pais, and in the Granada newspaper Granada Hoy, praising him as an intellectual full of life, with passion reminiscent of Don Quijote and the good humour of Sancho Panza.

Michael Jacobs will be missed by friends and Hispanophiles everywhere for his energy, love of life and adventure, for his knowledge and learning lightly worn, and for his hospitality, friendship and modesty.

Gail Turner Mooney

Nigel Glendinning Memorial Lecture – Joaquín Sorolla: his life, his legacy and his London experience

At 6.30 pm on Thursday 27 March, 2014, Almudena Hernández de la Torre of the Sorolla Museum, Madrid, will give the annual Nigel Glendinning Memorial Lecture at the Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Sq, London SW1W 9AN

Her lecture is entitled Joaquín Sorolla: his life, his legacy and his London experience

Entry is open to all and free to ARTES members. Guests and non-members will be asked to make a donation of £6 to ARTES

If you would like more information, please contact Morlin Ellis artesiberia@gmail.com

The Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Medal: Call for Submissions, deadline 31 January 2023

To encourage emerging scholars that are based in the UK, ARTES, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain, awards an annual essay medal to the author of the best art-historical essay or study on a Spanish theme, which must be submitted in competition and judged by a reading Sub-Committee. The medal is named after Juan Facundo Riaño (1829-1901), the distinguished art historian who was partly responsible for a growing interest in Spanish culture in late nineteenth-century Britain. The winner is also awarded a cash prize of £400, and the runner-up is awarded a certificate and prize of £100 – both prizes are generously sponsored by the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain. Prize-winners also receive a year’s free membership to ARTES, and the winning essays are considered for publication in the annual visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal. See the information about eligibility and rules of competition. The deadline is 31st January 2023.

Entering the Essay Competition

The judges will be looking for evidence of originality of thought and high academic quality. Submissions must focus on the production or reception of the art, architecture or visual culture of Spain. Alternative contributions in the form of photo or video essays will also be considered, provided that they demonstrate originality, high academic quality and high production standards.

As a permanent reminder of the winner’s achievement, an essay medal is awarded, together with a cash prize of £400. The winning essay will be considered for publication in the annual visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal. The runner-up receives a prize of £100, and an essay so commended may also be considered for publication in Hispanic Research Journal. Both prize-winners also receive a year’s free membership to ARTES.

Essays are submitted by 31 January each year, and are read by the Essay Medal Committee, appointed by ARTES. The decision of the Committee shall be final. Presentation of the medal is usually made at a special ceremony in London in Summer of the same year, and the result is announced on the ARTES website.

Previous Winners

2022: Patricia Manzano Rodríguez, a PhD candidate at the University of Durham, for ‘The Upper half of Las Meninas’.

2021: Diana Bularca, formerly a MA student at the Courtauld, for ‘Wilfredo Lam’s Strategic Language’

2020: Dr Simon Park, an early career scholar at the University of Oxford, for ‘Chasing Wild Men (in Silver)’.

2019: No award

2018: Javier Vicente Arenas, a Masters student at the Warburg Institute, for ‘Constructing a “Transmediterranean” Identity: Rodrigo de Borgia’s Italian Angels in Valencia Cathedral (1472-81)’.

2017: David Cambronero, a MA student at The Courtauld, for ‘Lighting the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Caliphal Period’.

2016: Leah McBride, a PhD student at Glasgow University, for ‘‘The grave is only half full; who will help us fill it?’: The Politics of Trauma in Alfredo Jaar’s Rwanda Project‘.

2015: Rebekah Lee, a PhD student at the University of York, for ‘Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal and the Courtly Portrayal of Middle Age’.

2014: Lesley Thornton-Cronin, a first year PhD student at Glasgow University, for ‘Image-Making by Means of Metaphoric Transposition in the Work of Joan Miró’.

2013: Maite Usoz, a third year PhD student at King’s College, London, for ‘Sex and the City: Urban Eroticism in Rodrigo Muñoz Ballester’s Manuel Series’.

Regulations for the Essay Medal

1. Entrants should ideally be resident or studying in the UK, but exceptions may be made if entrants can demonstrate sustained engagement with students, scholars, objects or materials in the UK.

2. There is no age limit for entrants, but the Essay Medal Committee reserves the right to give preference to entrants who have not previously published in the field of Hispanic visual arts. We welcome submissions from researchers in a variety of circumstances, but envisage that most essays will be submitted from early career scholars, post-graduate students or undergraduates with exceptionally good end-of-degree dissertations. Details of degrees or qualifications, as well as previous publications, must be submitted together with the submission (ie in the cover email, but not in the main text.

3. Visual arts are defined in their broadest sense to include all material and visual culture, including film and photography, but our collaboration with the Spanish Embassy means that essays must focus on the visual culture of Spain (or works originally produced in Spain or by Spanish artists).

4. The essay must not have been previously published and must not have been awarded any national or international prize. A note of any departmental prizes awarded to it should accompany the email by which the submission is sent.

5. Essays may be up to 10,000 words in length, including bibliography (though this is not not necessary if full footnotes are given), all notes and appendices. Shorter submissions will not be penalised on grounds of length, but overlength essays will be refused. A word count and a summary of up to 250 words (additional to the work total) must be included. Submissions in the form of photo essays or videos (up to 25 minutes in length) will also be considered.

6. The submission should demonstrate original thinking. It may be based on a dissertation, and may involve original research, although submissions based on a survey of secondary material will also be considered if they are of suitable quality. However, the submission should be self-contained and especially prepared for this competition.

7. Entries must be written in English and double-spaced. Diagrams or illustrations should be included and captioned. Sources of information and images must be acknowledged, together with information about image rights.

8. The winning essay may be considered for publication in the visual arts issue of Hispanic Research Journal, subject to the usual process of refereeing, and to acceptance by the Editors, whose decision on this is final. In the event of the essay being accepted for publication, some reworking may be required. Essays may not be offered for publication elsewhere while they are sub judice.

9. In the case of any dispute about the award, the decision of the ARTES Essay Medal Committee shall be final.

10. ARTES reserves the right to make no award if none of the entries is considered worthy.

11. The closing date for entries is 31st January each year. Essays received after this date will not be considered.

12. A PDF of the essay, including images, should be sent to tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk To ensure anonymity please do not put your name on the essay.

13. Any queries should be directed to tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk