Baroque Spain and the Writing of Visual and Material Culture

by Alicia R Zuese

Overview

By examining the pictorial episodes in the Spanish baroque novella, this book elucidates how writers create pictorial texts, how audiences visualise their words, what consequences they exert on cognition and what actions this process inspires. To interrogate characters’ mental activity, internalisation of text and the effects on memory, this book applies methodologies from cognitive cultural studies, Classical memory treatises and techniques of spiritual visualisation. It breaks new ground by investigating how artistic genres and material culture help us grasp the audience’s aural, material, visual and textual literacies, which equipped the public with cognitive mechanisms to face restrictions in post-Counter-Reformation Spain. The writers examined include prominent representatives of Spanish prose —Cervantes, Lope de Vega, María de Zayas and Luis Vélez de Guevara— as well as Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses and an anonymous group in Córdoba.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783167852
Publisher:	University of Wales Press
Publication date:	11/20/2015
Series:	Studies in Visual Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

This book is aimed at an audience of undergraduate and postgraduate students, and professors and researchers interested in medieval through baroque Spanish literature, art, book history and visual and material culture.

Read an Excerpt

Baroque Spain

and the Writing of Visual and Material Culture

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By Alicia R. Zuese

University of Wales Press

Copyright © 2015 Alicia R. Zuese
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78316-784-5

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CHAPTER 1

Image, Text and Memory in Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Print

Manuscript decoration is part of the painture of language, one of the gates to memory, and the form it takes often has to do with what is useful not only to understand a text but to retain and recall it too. (Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 281)

This chapter investigates how representations of visual and material culture appear in the texts and illustrations of medieval and Renaissance exempla collections, precursors to the baroque novella. I consider what role real and textual images play in the audience's cognitive engagement with the morals, and I trace a trajectory of heightened visualization suggested in the move towards multiple morals correlated to pictorial cues. I consider how the socio-political context of patronage may direct the vision expressed in these texts, particularly in the modelling of audience agency in engaging in interpretation, taking images to mind and applying the texts' messages. Spanish novella writers in the seventeenth century succeeded in reviving the frame-tale genre that I study in this chapter by adapting it to the sociocultural context in which they wrote. Some conditions did not necessitate updating: medieval and baroque collections model oral storytelling, and audiences could use memory techniques to consider and disseminate tales beyond the confines of the ephemeral acts of reading or listening to them. Orality underlies sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish culture, inherited from classical and medieval practices, as Margit Frenk Alatorre establishes.

This chapter considers illuminations and engravings as facets of manuscript, incunabula and print book culture that foster memory and influence the verbal-visual expressions emerging in the baroque when printed images become rare. Vast amounts of knowledge could circulate even when direct access to books was minimal, which Carruthers's work substantiates. The intervention of sponsors, writers and artisans in the production of images means that illustrated texts shed light on the way that representatives of the medieval imagination conceived of the relation between word and image. Hence, when patrons like King Enrique IV oversee production, or writers are also politicians like Don Juan Manuel, the earliest manifestations of verbalvisual expression in Spain connect to expressions of power, privilege and influence. In addition, I examine the retablo (altarpiece) as a parallel hybrid genre, since it fused sculpture, painting and architecture and also involved patrons and artisans. The images assumed a narrative function in retablos, and their location inside the church infuses them with the institution's authority and the vivid presence of oral discourse.

By probing the interrelation of image, text and memory in medieval manuscripts and early printed books of exempla, this chapter lays the ground-work for examining textual images in baroque novella collections. In relation to illustrated texts, I propose some connections to the medieval retablo to establish currents across the verbal and pictorial arts that consolidate in baroque frontispieces and emblems. The exempla collection embedded in the fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript Libro del Caballero Zifar, Los castigos del rey de Mentón (Advice from the King of Mentón), helps to gauge the technique the artisans use to communicate the didactic message through the abundant images, which cover nearly 70 per cent of the section (sixtythree illustrations/ninety-two pages). The exempla of Don Juan Manuel's El Conde Lucanor present a mystery, when manuscript S leaves space for miniatures it refers to as 'ystorias' (BNE 6376 c.fourteenth to fifteenth centuries). From the age of print, the elaborately illustrated Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo, extant in multiple editions throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth century, signals an important moment in the move towards the kind of verbal-visual expression consolidated in the emblem. Finally, the woodcuts in Sebastián Mey's Fabulario (1613), an illustrated story collection contemporary to Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares, reflect medieval tendencies of singular commemorative images and simple morals.

Memory, image and text in the Middle Ages

Since few people had the intellectual or financial means to access written culture in the medieval world, morality and doctrine circulated orally (sermons) and visually (retablos), while storytelling could transmit general knowledge. Even in monastic learning communities with access to manuscripts, according to Carruthers huge quantities of information resided in the mind until at least the fourteenth century, and some considered books less reliable than mental storage (Book 198, 201–2). Carruthers summarizes the key tenets surrounding memory in the Middle Ages, many of which endure in later centuries: 'that memory is easily overwhelmed by too solid or lengthy a diet, that it requires pleasing, that it retains best what is unusual and surprising, that memorizing is best served when one fixes what one is learning within a fully synaesthetic context' (Book 315).

The verbal-visual aspect of mnemotechnics often expresses itself more subtly. In discussing how medieval writers consider the interrelation of words, pictures and memory, Carruthers establishes that texts communicate pictorial qualities whether they are heard or read, illustrated or not (Book 278). Furthermore, physical illustrations in the text are unnecessary for the imagination's formation of mental pictures, which need not resemble actual paintings or illuminations (Book 276). Carruthers shows that the illustrations in ancient and medieval texts did not merely simplify or summarize the content, but rather were 'designed as a set of reminder-cues, made to order for a patron who knew the text already but wanted the picture summary as a meditational/ mnemonic instrument ... [and thus the images] may represent mnemonically significant choices for the patron' (Craft 202). In sum, the medieval age passed on to Renaissance and baroque practitioners of memory technique flexible understandings of how images and texts interacted with each other and in the mind.

The medieval exempla collection proves a fitting genre to examine in light of mnemotechnics and text illustration. These didactic texts often modelled the virtues of accessing mentally a ready store of concise narratives to delay death (the Thousand and One Nights, Sendebar), instruct others (El Conde Lucanor), or for mixed motives such as entertaining a group fleeing the plague or on a pilgrimage (Decameron, The Canterbury Tales). The story collections that preceded Cervantes's 1613 Novelas ejemplares were diverse, and included European adaptations of Hindu and Arabic frame tales, mirrors of princes, compendia for clergy, fables and mixed genres, the form often revealing their intended audience and application. While many texts circulated in Latin, such as Petrus Alphonsus' Disciplina Clericalis (Ecclesiastical Discipline), others were translated or written in the vernacular, contributing to the creation of a linguistic tradition, like (then Prince) Alfonso X's sponsorship of the Calila et Dimna translation into Castilian in 1251. Vernacular composition also facilitated use of the texts among a general audience. Writers and translators often referenced the circuitous routes that some of the texts took: María Jesús Lacarra explains that the cycle known under the names Sendebar/Seven Sages of Rome had Eastern and Western routes of transmission respectively (Sendebar 13). The Códice de Puñonrostro (Puñonrostro Codex) (15c) contains the surviving manuscript of the anonymous Sendebar with several of Don Juan Manuel's didactic works. His collection El Conde Lucanor uses an inventive frame, relaying conversations between the count and his advisor Patronio. Don Juan Manuel's tales exhibit a diversity of unnamed sources of relevance to Spain's medieval tricultural context, apparent in references to Muslim protagonists and proverbs.

Libro del Caballero Zifar: didacticism and the frame

The fifteenth-century manuscript of Libro del Caballero Zifar, housed at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, offers a special case of manuscript illumination of fiction in Spain. Created under the patronage of King Enrique IV (1454–74), a figure haunted by speculation about his impotence, this remarkable manuscript contains 242 elaborate illuminations. The miniatures consumed twenty-five years of artistic work by five different artists (Planas Badenas 142). The lavish illustrations contribute to the text's opulence as an object of splendour. They also provide visual access to a richly hued rendition of multitudinous scenes portraying the landscape, characters, conversations, battles, punishments and textiles that the text evoked to the artisans entrusted with translating the manuscript into colour.

The scarce religious content also makes the rich illuminations singular, although Miguel Morán and Fernando Checa note that fifteenth-century collections became more private and profane in contrast with earlier medieval trends (29, 44). The question of why Enrique IV would have chosen to create such a remarkable copy of an early fourteenth-century text finds an answer in José Manuel Lucía Megías's theory that Zifar attracted Enrique because it contains wise advice for kings, knights and nobles, and because it puts forward the knight as a new ideological icon (1068). Perhaps Enrique saw his own tribulations echoed in the trials that Zifar suffered exile, the death of his horses, separation from his family and longed for the good outcome that Zifar and his family enjoyed. What do we make of the materiality of this manuscript, whose impressive size (397 × 270 mm), illustrations, gorgeous calligraphy and embellished capitals were appreciated by the most select viewers? How do text and image collaborate to instruct the audience and what could viewers do with their recollection of the words and pictures?

Aside from the extraordinary illuminations, the text, originally composed by an unknown author in the early fourteenth century, exhibits a fascinating mix of genres that recalls Cervantes's recipe for the modern novel in Don Quijote, which incorporates most of the literary genres of the period and unites them through their subordination to Don Quijote and Sancho's adventures. Similarly, Zifar's story frames the other elements of the narrative, which accounts for his frequent appearance in the illustrations, as Lucía Megías points out. The choice or omission of frame tale, as well as its complexity and relation to the embedded stories, may shed light on the writer's vision of issues surrounding the collection, such as order and chaos. Francisco Rico calls it 'una obra "pluritextual"' ('a "pluritextual" work') that reveals the writer's compositional strategy of combining disparate textual slabs in one narrative space (255). Lacarra suggests that Libro del Caballero Zifar shares similarities with miscellanies (Cuento 192), a genre related to the collection that surged in popularity in Spain in the sixteenth century.

One of the genres that the writer incorporates is exempla in the guise of the mirror of princes, Los castigos del rey de Mentón, wherein Zifar, now King Mentón, instructs his sons Garfín and Roboan on behaviour through lessons and stories. This section actually plays an important role in the text, since it bridges the trials of Zifar and his family in the first part with the success of his son Roboan as he becomes emperor. Indeed, Lucía Megías argues that the entire text has a didactic effect, providing a sense of coherence (1065).

The Castigos consist of a revised version of the didactic compendium Flores de filosofía (Flowers of Philosophy). The integration of this text suggests that the writer accepted the collection's themes and authority as superior to any effort that could be spent on creating new tales. This stance reflects the circumstances in medieval Spain surrounding literary creation and the circulation of knowledge, wherein intellectuals often accepted knowledge from authorities instead of creating new lines of inquiry. Regardless of its originality, the section reveals the vision also apparent in baroque novella collections: the tales make the audience privy to specialized knowledge meant for the elite. Whereas in novellas the information centres on navigating social relationships and refining communication skills, the Castigos educates the princes as to the socio-cultural knowledge that will prepare them for leadership.

My inquiry occupies itself with unravelling the way that the copyist, artists and artisans creating the illuminated manuscript communicate the interplay of word and image. Planas Badenas and Lucía Megías ponder why the images in Castigos reiterate the brief scene of the king instructing his sons instead of the content of the tales. In contrast, later illustrated exempla collections such as the Exemplario open with an image of the characters from the didactic frame, but go on to illustrate the content of the tales. Although Planas Badenas critiques the illuminations in Castigos for their perceived failure to reflect the content of the tales (189), we know from Carruthers that was not the intent of miniatures. Indeed, since the images reiterate the scene of instruction, this aspect of the image–text relation merits closer examination.

The illuminations in relation to the exempla section communicate a similar acquiescence to authority (as opposed to originality) that we discover in the insertion and minor adjustment of the Flores to create the Castigos. Approximately 20 per cent of the Paris manuscript's total illustrated pages depict Zifar's castigos to his sons (50/242), whereas 5 per cent (13/242) represent stories, all of which feature the theme of advice, according to Lucía Megías's study (1064). If we analyse further, the disposition of illustrated exempla within the Castigos section shows initially an equal number of illuminations of the exempla and of the king with his sons: nine of each appear in the first eighteen illuminations. As the Castigos progresses, the next forty-five pages depict thirty scenes of the king instructing his sons, but not one illumination of the exempla content. However, the final section again concentrates images of the tales, including three separate illuminations of exempla in the final six pages. A framing effect comes into focus when we notice the sequence of both illustration types at the beginning and end of the Castigos, whereas the central portion of the section emphasizes the didactic activity instead of the exempla's message.

The reiterated scenes depicting the king and his sons in the illuminations of the Castigos exemplify Carruthers's assertion that stock images such as these functioned as memory markers, making the audience receptive to meditation. This seems to be a better explanation than Lucía Megías's theory that the trend in the illuminations reflects the focus on Zifar and his family at the expense of the intercalated tales (1063). The images exhibit minor differences in setting, clothing and the characters' gestures and position, signalling that these small changes could serve as spaces in which to store memories associated with each lesson.

Although the scene of Zifar and his sons repeats, the fine details of the miniatures vary in every image. The use of architectural spaces creates a sense of repetition and framing: bricks, brocade wall hangings and elaborately intercalating floor patterns emphasize more forcefully the cumulative structure of the Castigos. The artists also juxtapose textures (large and small blocks, slabs) and tonal differences in the colours that create an effect of visual embedding and layering, echoing with the composition process of the manuscript itself. For instance, illuminated facing pages reveal trends and variety within the repeated images (99v–100r, 114v–115r, and 117v–118r). Specifically, 99v, which opens the Castigos section, depicts the king and sons donning coloured cloaks, sitting on benches in a low-walled structure with yellow bricks, embedded arches and a green dotted floor. In the background we see palm trees and two castles nestled among sharp hills and rock formations (Figure 1.1).

The facing page 100r, meanwhile, portrays the king with a different beard on an elaborate multicoloured throne, wearing a blue cloak, in an interior space exhibiting blue lined walls, an ornate black area recessed into the wall and a black dotted floor (Figure 1.2). The exterior background shows larger castles, and sloping hills with trees adorned with round and triangle-shaped foliage. The gestures of the characters are similar, but the hands assume different positions.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Viewing the Tale: Cervantes’s Portrait, Lope’s Hieroglyphics and Methods of Verbal Visual Cognition Chapter One: Image, Text and Memory in Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Print Chapter Two: Don Quijote and Don Juan: Collectors and the Collection as Models for Critical Inquiry into the Baroque Chapter Three: Material Representations of the World: Using Physical Texts and Fictional Expression to Create Literary Edifices Chapter Four: Emblems, Meditation and Memory: Mental Reverberations of the Novella Chapter Five: Fragmentation of the Protagonist and Society: Emblems, Anamorphosis and Corporeality Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Alicia R. Zuese’s wide-ranging study elegantly argues that seventeenth-century Spanish works of fiction, and in particular novella collections, were profoundly impacted by visual media. Baroque Spain explores the nexus of literary analysis, cognitive studies, and visual and material culture, and will be of great interest to readers outside of Hispanic Studies.”
 

Patricia W. Manning