Organised by Stefano Cracolici and Edward Payne (Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, Durham University)
Free, but please register at this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/canons-and-repertoires-constructing-the-visual-arts-in-the-hispanic-world-registration-62569293441
The visual arts in Spain have long been haunted by the spectres of six giants: El Greco, Ribera, Velázquez, Murillo, Goya and Picasso. Still today, these canonical figures tower over all others and continue to shape the story of Spanish art, which has been traditionally told in monographic form. Although the strength of the Spanish canon has informed different disciplines (literature, aesthetics, performing arts), given the recent ‘material turn’, the prosopographical dimension of the visual arts in Spain poses a disciplinary challenge. Similarly, following the ‘global turn’, the visual arts of Iberia pose a geographical challenge, intersecting with the Mediterranean, Arabic, Latin American, British and continental European worlds. The notions of ‘Spain’ and ‘Spanish art’, therefore, are necessarily nebulous and problematic, raising a host of questions: To what extent does Spanish art exist before the establishment of Spain as a nation state? To what extent is the art of the Habsburg and Bourbon empires a Spanish art outside Spain? What is the role of Spain in the wider canon of European art? Who has exploited the visual arts of the Hispanic world, geographically, politically and intellectually? These questions ultimately point to a tension between canons and repertoires; between centres and peripheries; and between consolidating the ‘core’ and expanding the ‘remit’ of the so-called Spanish school.
This conference will explode the disciplinary, material and geographical limits of Spanish art, inaugurating the Zurbarán Centre as a critical and innovative research institution for the study of Spanish and Latin American art in the twenty-first century. Papers will challenge the canonical construction of Spanish art, which can be traced back to writings from Palomino’s Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors (1724) to Stirling Maxwell’s Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), to more recent publications by scholars in the field. Papers will also probe the chronological, geographical and material boundaries of the ‘El Greco to Goya’ survey, interrogating the ways in which academics, curators, scholars and teachers narrate this material through various platforms, including publications, museum displays, exhibitions, lectures, gallery talks and academic courses. Speakers will address the various ‘terrains’ of Spanish art, from geographical constructions of Iberia as Europe’s frontier or edge, to exchange with all that lies beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
PROGRAMME
Thursday 20 June 2019
| 09.30 – 10.00 | Registration & Coffee |
| 10.00 – 10.05 | Introduction & Welcome |
| 10.05 – 11.20 | Session 1: Historiographies Chair: Stefano Cracolici (Durham University) |
| 10.05 – 10.25 | Why El Greco to Goya? Edward Payne (Durham University) |
| 10.25 – 10.45 | Frederic Leighton’s Vision of Spain Véronique Gerard Powell (Sorbonne Université, Paris) |
| 10.45 – 11.05 | Nigel Glendinning and the Hispanic Research Journal: A Unique Voice in Spanish Cultural History Sarah Symmons (University of Essex) |
| 11.05 – 11.20 | Discussion |
| 11.20 – 11.50 | Tea & Coffee |
| 11.50 – 12.50 | Keynote Lecture: Passion and Prejudice: Attitudes to Spanish Sculpture in Nineteenth-Century Britain Holly Trusted (Victoria & Albert Museum, London) |
| 13.00 – 14.00 | Lunch |
| 14.00 – 15.15 | Session 2: Geographies Chair: Edward Payne (Durham University) |
| 14.00 – 14.20 | Beyond El Greco: The Travelling Artist between Italy and Spain—Artistic Translation and the Sixteenth-Century Hispanic Canon Piers Baker-Bates (The Open University) |
| 14.20 – 14.40 | Maestros españoles en Chile: Espacios y repertorios Marcela Drien (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago de Chile) |
| 14.40 – 15.00 | Geographic Limits and the History of the Spanish Avant-Garde Maite Barragán (Albright College, Reading PA) |
| 15.00 – 15.15 | Discussion |
| 15.15 – 16.30 | Session 3: Strategies Chair: Tom Stammers (Durham University) |
| 15.15 – 15.35 | Genaro Pérez Villaamil: Navigating Stereotypes Claudia Hopkins (University of Edinburgh) |
| 15.35 – 15.55 | Imaginary Architecture as Imagined Community: ‘The Market’ by Jenaro Pérez Villaamil Matilde Mateo (Syracuse University) |
| 15.55 – 16.15 | Hieroglyphs of Providence: Pelegrín Clavé and Isabella I of Castile Stefano Cracolici (Durham University) |
| 16.15 – 16.30 | Discussion |
| 16.30 – 17.00 | Tea & Coffee |
| 17.00 – 18.00 | Keynote Lecture Canons and Repertoires in Hispanic Art: What does Stirling Maxwell have to do with them? Hilary Macartney (University of Glasgow) |
Friday 21 June 2019
| 9.30 – 10.00 | Tea & Coffee |
| 10.00 – 11.15 | Session 4: Identities Chair: Giovanna Capitelli (Università Roma Tre) |
| 10.00 – 10.20 | El arte español más allá de la península ibérica: ¿Qué significa ser un ‘artista español en la Nueva España’? Luis Javier Cuesta Hernández (Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México) |
| 10.20 – 10.40 | Constructing the Monuments of the Nation: Victor Balaguer and the Struggle to Shape Monasteries as Spanishness Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes (Newcastle University) |
| 10.40 – 11.00 | Thinking Spain from Barcelona: The Iconographic Repertoire of Spanish Art (1918–1922) Lucila Mallart (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) |
| 11.00 – 11.15 | Discussion |
| 11.15 – 11.45 | Tea & Coffee |
| 11.45 – 13.00 | Session 5: Remediations Chair: Ludmilla Jordanova (Durham University) |
| 11.45 – 12.05 | Thinking through Painting: Artistic Practice as Metaphor in the Early Modern Hispanic World Adam Jasienski (Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX) |
| 12.05 – 12.25 | From Mimesis to Montage: Sergei Eisenstein on El Greco Dušan Radunović (Durham University) |
| 12.25 – 12.45 | ‘Ese Velázquez sí que era un genio’: el canon del arte español y la ficción televisiva Luis Vives-Ferrándiz Sánchez (Universitat de València) |
| 12.45 – 13.00 | Discussion |
| 13.00 – 14.00 | Lunch |
| 14.00 – 14.20 | Concluding Remarks Amaya Alzaga Ruiz (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid) |
| 14.20 – 15.00 | Roundtable Discussion |
| 15.00 – 16.00 | Refreshment |
