Session at the Renaissance Society of America 2020 Conference

Papers are sought for panel presentations on the impact of art theory and the global dissemination of works of art from Early Modern Spain and the Hispanic territories of the New World. Spain’s visual culture and literary arts thrived amid a time of political turmoil, instability, and economic crisis. 

The theoretical discourses generated by Spain, the Hispanic Kingdoms, and Viceroyalties prompted new conceptions of art and unprecedented claims to artistic originality while producing an intense circulation of artistic works around the world. 

We invite papers that examine sacred allegories, historical painting, philosophical and literary texts from Golden Age Spain, as well as architectural settings, public processions, miraculous relics and the venerated saints that were held up as symbols of the city and/or the kingdom. 

The presentations comprising this panel will provide an in-depth perspective on the interrelated issues of Early Modern Spain and the Hispanic territories, and on understudied aspects of the interaction with the arts of Colonial Spanish America in a global context. 

500 – 1,000-word abstracts are invited for consideration on topics including but not limited to the following: 

  • Spanish paintings distributed in Peru, New Spain and the rest of the Americas, and the impact of the imported art on the art of the colony from the late sixteenth century to mid- eighteenth century. 
  • the majolicas of Spanish America and global distribution 
  • early global trade and lavish consumption in the Spanish America 
  • art theory and the circulation of works of art at the Court, and in the cities of Valencia and Naples as independent art centers, as well as in other major regional centers such as Toledo, Seville, Madrid
  • art theory and art dissemination in the main centers of Colonial Spanish America such as Mexico and Lima, and their interrelation with Early Modern Spain 
  • the status of painting as a liberal art and the painter as its noble practitioner on both the Spanish national art scene and in the Hispanic territories 
  • the large body of art theory in Early Modern and Baroque Spain: Carducho, Pacheco, Jusepe Martínez, Lázaro Díaz del Valle, and Antonio Palomino (1724). 
  • Italian Renaissance ideas and Palomino’s theory of 1715 that Spanish artists should attend the schools of Spain, rather than the osterie of Rome where they experience only bewilderment and disorientation 
  • art theoretical positions by major artists such as Diego de Velázquez, Alonso Cano, Francisco Ribalta, Jusepe de Ribera, Felipe Gómez de Valenica, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and others that mark the historical and political events of the Siglo de Oro 
  • Spanish Baroque artists engaging the Italian Renaissance art, culture, architecture, and art theoretical discourse 
  • materials and techniques of polychrome sculpture as well as the important centers, clientele, and art theorists associated with its production 
  • innovative art theoretical approaches to the integration of painting and carving that characterize the complex medium of polychrome sculpture as a devotional art form 
  • old practices of processional statues, altarpieces, stalls, and their reassessment by art theorists  
  • the true portrait, or the Veras Imagos, sculpted likeness that stood on the church altar 
  • the dissemination and circulation of drawings in Colonial Spanish America

Organizers: Livia Stoenescu, Texas A&M University; and Luis Javier Cuesta Hernández, Universidad Iberoamericana

Abstracts, one-page CV (not in prose!), and keywords should be sent by July 1st, 2019 to Dr. Livia Stoenescu  [email protected]  and to Dr. Luis Javier Cuesta Hernández  [email protected]