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FA 191b Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art: Velázquez and Goya

Block S1 M 2:00 PM–4:50 PM

Mandel Center for Humanities G10

Professor Jonathan Unglaub x6-2665

Office Hours: T 9:00-11:00 am Mandel Center 211


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This seminar focuses on the life and works of the two greatest masters of Spanish Art, Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Francisco Goya (1746–1828). Though a century separates their careers, there are many parallels in their works, and the later artist engaged in a constant dialogue with his predecessor. We will examine their innovative techniques of painting and printmaking and consider the role of each as a court artist during the Hapsburg and Bourbon/Napoleonic eras. Whereas Velázquez was the consummate courtier, Goya grapples with the legacy of the Enlightenment in an age of revolutionary upheaval. Velázquez was the ultimate insider, an intimate of the monarch and his ministers, who viewed courtly status as the validation of his art, but cultivated a dazzling painterly technique and conceptual subtlety that transcended the outward conformity of his pictorial types. Goya was likewise extremely successful at Court, but maintained a skeptical and ironic distance, which illness and deafness exacerbated. Ultimately, he became the supreme chronicler of human folly and cruelty in works that seem remarkably modern in their uncompromising, visceral impact.

This course is designed to take advantage of the major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston -- Goya: Order and Disorder. Student research projects and final presentations will be based on groups of works on display at the exhibition, which we will visit twice as a group.


Readings:

There are two required texts, supplemented by scholarly essays posted on LATTE:

· Brown, Jonathan, Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008).

· Hughes, Robert, Goya (New York: Knopf, 2003).

All other readings in the course schedule are available on LATTE, posted in the module correlating to the pertinent course meeting. These will be high-quality PDFs of articles from journals available through on-line databases, or scanned from books and journals.

LATTE and Artstor:

In addition to the readings, each weekly module on the LATTE will contain a link to the forum for the readings questions. There may, on occasion, be an image file posted, if needed to supplement the readings. These image files will be ARTSTOR “off-line image viewer” (OIV) presentations. To open and view these files you will have to download the free OIV software. Instructions are posted on LATTE. You may also access and download images from the comprehensive Artstor Image database, for presentations and study, once you have registered with Artstor.

Requirements:

This course is a research seminar. Its purpose is an in-depth examination of the primary source material and modern scholarship (though only in English) on these great Spanish masters. To this end, the course, and your contributions to it, have three components.

1. LATTE forum postings: To ensure a thoughtful grasp and reflection on the readings, and to prepare for discussion, questions on the readings will be posted on LATTE by the Thursday before each Monday meeting. You must respond to these by 9am on Monday via the LATTE forum, about 4-500 words or so in total. The postings will not be graded, but will be accorded 3 points per weekly posting, less (1 or 2) if cursory or incomplete. It is my hope that everyone will prepare the readings and receive 2 points each week. You must post 6 weeks of your choosing.

2. Paper and presentation on Velázquez’s Las Meninas. This 8-10 page paper examines different interpretations of Velazquez’s masterpiece. It is due on October 17th, at the end of a week when class does not meet. For the following Monday session, each student will have been assigned one of the readings to introduce to the class (3-5 minutes). This presentation will be the basis of the forum points for this week.

3. Research Paper: The second component is a 15-page research paper, which involves several stages. A thesis statement (1-2pages), outline, and preliminary bibliography (of at least 15 items) are due electronically on November 14th . A full-length rough draft as a Word doc. is due electronically on December 5th. I will return by e-mail the rough drafts with comments via MS Word track by the beginning of the following week. The final paper (fully annotated, with illustrations appended to the text) can be submitted at your convenience during the final exam period, but no later than Thursday, December 18th.

A list of possible topics will be circulated in late October, once Professor Unglaub has had a chance to scope out the exhibition (opening October 19). At this time, a number of Goya books and the exhibition catalogue will be placed on an open reserve shelf in the Creative Arts Library (Farber 3) to facilitate research and sharing of resources.


4. Presentation: In tandem with the research for the paper, each student will make a 15-minute illustrated presentation to the class on the chosen topic during our final meeting on December 8th. Everyone should meet with me individually at some point during the prior week (office hours or appointment), to discuss the scope of the presentation and its visuals. You may download images from ArtStor for use with OIV or Power Point. Another good on-line image bank is the Web Gallery of Art (www.wga.hu), and many high quality images can be accessed through google art and Wikipedia commons. With some advance notice, a few additional digital images can be made for the presentation from books through the visual resources curator. These presentations need to be polished, practiced and coherently organized – not simply a recitation of bullet points or your paper text.

Grade calculation:

21 % 8 LATTE postings (0-3 points given each week), and Las Meninas reading presentation

24% Las Meninas Paper, due October 17th

5 % Thesis paragraph / Outline / Bibliography of Research Paper, due November 14th

10 % Draft of Research Paper, due December 5th

10 % Research Presentation on December 8th

30 % Final Research Paper (final exam period, by December 18th)

Since this class meets only once a week, attendance is mandatory. A half grade will be deducted from your average for each unexcused absence. Absolute maximum of two excused absences.

Museum Trips:

There are three schedule visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which serves as the course laboratory (two during class time and one outside*).

· September 15th will focus on works by Velázquez and his contemporaries in the permanent collection, including two masterpieces in storage being prepared for loan to Vienna for a major exhibition.

· November 10th will include a discussion with the curator of the major loan exhibition, Goya: Order and Disorder, Dr. Frederick Ilchman, and a walk through of the show.

· November 20th* we will meet at the exhibition during evening hours to discuss further works in detail.

Schedule of Classes:

1. Monday, September 8th

Velázquez in Seville: The Sacred and the Everyday in Genre pictures and Devotional Images

· Palomino, Antonio, “Life of Velázquez,” in Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, transl. Nina Ayala Mallory (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 139-44.

· Elliot, John H., “The Seville of Velázquez,” in Velázquez in Seville (exhib. cat., Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1996), 15-21.

· Brown, Jonathan, “Velázquez in Seville,” in Velázquez: Painter and Courtier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 1-35.

· Pacheco, Francisco, from “Arte della pintura,” in Robert Engass and Jonathan Brown, eds., Italian and Spanish Art 1600-1750: Sources and Documents (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999), 161-7.

· Tiffany, Tanya, “Light, Darkness, and African Salvation: Velázquez’s Supper at Emaus,” Art History 31 (2009), 33-56.

2. Monday, September 15th

Visit to the Museum of Fine Arts to see works by Velázquez and his Contemporaries

· Brown, Jonathan, Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), also pp. 264-7 (On Don Baltassar Carlos and a Dwarf).

· Bass, Lauren, “Framing the Margins in Center Stage,” in The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain (University Park: Penn State Press, 2008), 101-112.

· Portús, Javier, “Velázquez in Grey: Decorum and Representation,” “cat. nos. 1-3,” in Diego Velázquez: The Early Court Portraits (Dallas: Meadows Museum, 2012), 17-35, 86-93.

3. Monday September 22nd

Painter to the King and Artistic Aspirations: Court Portraiture and Italian sojourn

· Palomino, Antonio, “Life of Velázquez,” in Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, transl. Nina Ayala Mallory (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 144-52.

· Pacheco, Francisco, “Life of Velázquez,” from Arte de la pintura (1649), transl. Michael Jacobs (London: Pallas Athene, 2006), 31-48.

· Tiffany, Tanya, “A Bodegón and a Collector: The Waterseller of Seville,” in Diego Velázquez’s Early Paintings and the Culture or Seventeenth-Century Seville (University Park: Penn State Press, 2013), 77-102.

· Brown, Jonathan, “Enemies of Flattery: Velázquez’s Portraits of Philip IV,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 103-115.

· Brown, Jonathan, “Velázquez, Rubens, and Van Dyck,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 201-282.

· Brown, Jonathan, “Velázquez and Italy,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 387-403.

4. Monday, September 29th

Hapsburg Propaganda and Perceptive Portraiture: Buen Retiro and later portraits

· Palomino, Antonio, “Life of Velázquez,” in Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, transl. Nina Ayala Mallory (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 152-62.

· Brown, Jonathan, “On the Origin of Las Lanzas by Velázquez,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 31-7.

· Brown, Jonathan, “The Buen Retiro Palace: A Theatre for the Arts,” in Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos, ed. Paintings for the Planet King: Philip IV and the Buen Retiro Palace (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado and London: Holberton, 2005), 65-89.

· Lopera, José Álvarez , “The Hall of Realms: The Present State of Knowledge and a Reconsideration,” in Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos, ed. Paintings for the Planet King: Philip IV and the Buen Retiro Palace (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado and London: Holberton, 2005), 90-147.

· Jonathan Brown, Velázquez: Painter and Courtier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 139-58, 169-74, 195-204, 214-30.

· Stoichita, Victor, from “The Image of the Black in Spanish Art: Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Centuries,” David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds. Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. 3, part 1 (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010), 225-234.


5. Monday, October 6th

Re-inventing Mythological painting

· Brown, Jonathan, “Velázquez, Rubens, and Van Dyck,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 289-298.

· Orso, Steven, “The Web of Responses,” and “Bacchus in Iberia,” in Velázquez, Los Borrachos and Painting at the Court of Philip IV (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1-39, 109-41.

· Cherry, Peter, “Velázquez and the Nude,” in Javier Portús, ed. Velázquez’s Fables: Mythology and Sacred History in the Golden Age, exhib. cat., Museo del Prado (Madrid: 2007), 241-69.

· Alpers, Svetlana, “Velázquez’s Spinners: Singularity at Court,” and “The Painter’s Museum,” in The Vexations of Art: Velázquez and Others (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 235-218.

<<Monday, October 13th, Brandeis Thursday – no class>>

* Friday, October 17th, Las Meninas paper due by 5:00 pm

6. Monday, October 20

Las Meninas: Puzzle, Promotion, Paradox

Presentations on different interpretations of Las Meninas

· Palomino, Antonio, “Life of Velázquez,” in Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, transl. Nina Ayala Mallory (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 162-66.

· Brown, Jonathan, “On the Meaning of Las Meninas,” Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 47-75.

· Foucault, Michel, “Las Meninas,” in The Order of Things (New York: Vintage, 1973), 3-16.

· Searle, John, “Las Meninas and the Paradoxes of Representation,” Critical Inquiry 6 (1980): 477-88.

· Steinberg, Leo, “Velásquez’s Las Meninas,” October 19 (1981): 45-54.

· Alpers, Svetlana, “Interpretation without Representation, or, the Viewing of Las Meninas,” Representations 1 (1983): 30-42.

· Snyder, Joel “Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince,” Critical Inquiry 11 (1985): 539-72.

· Umberger, Emily, “Velázquez and Naturalism II: Interpreting “Las Meninas,” RES 28 (1995): 94-117.

· Brown, Jonathan, “Las Meninas as a Masterpiece,” in Collected Writings on Velázquez (Madrid: CEEH and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 165-85.

· Knox, Giles, “Las Meninas: Painterly Polemics,” in The Late Paintings of Velázquez: Theorizing Painterly Performance (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), 145-75.

7. Monday, October 27th

Goya’s beginnings and Road to Court: Tapestry Cartoons and Aristocratic Portraits

· Hughes, Robert, Goya (New York: Knopf, 2003), 13-126; 144-51, 157-71.

· Salomon, Xavier, “Goya and the Altamira Family,” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 71 (2014), 4-48.

· Carretero, Concha Herrero and Ribeiro, Aileen, “An Introduction to Goya’s Cartoons and Tapestries,” and “cat. nos. 1-27,” in Janis Tomlinson, ed. Goya Images of Women, exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 89-164.


8. Monday, November 3rd

Caprices, Nightmares, and Introspection

· Hughes, Robert, Goya (New York: Knopf, 2003), 126-43; 151-7, 171-215.

· Ciofalo, John, “Goya’s Enlightenment Protagonist – A quixotic Dreamer of Reason,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 30 (1997), 421-36.

· Stoichita, Victor I. and Codrech, Anna Maria, “Goya’s Pharmacy,” in Goya: The Last Carnival (London: Reaktion, 1999), 155-91.

· Schulz, Andrew, “Inverting the Enlightenment Body,” in Goya’s Caprichos: Aesthetics, Perception and the Body (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 120-156.

· Goya, Los Caprichos (New York: Dover, 1969)

9. Monday, November 10th

Group Visit to MFA exhibition Goya: Order and Disorder

Visit with curator Frederick Ichmann; independently view works related to research projects

· Zanardi, Tara, “Fashioning the Duchess of Alba: Vicarious Thrills and Sartorial Flirtations in the Spanish Enlightenment,” Fashion Theory 14 (2010): 7-44.

· Other readings tba

* Friday, November 14th: Thesis statement, outline, and bibliography to be submitted electronically.

10. Monday, November 17th

Goya in dialogue with Velázquez: Royal Portraiture and the Nude

· Hughes, Robert, Goya (New York: Knopf, 2003), 216-260.

· Licht, Fred, “Group Portraits,” “The Majas,” in Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art, rev. ed. (New York: Abbeville, 2001), 90-115, 116-129.