Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain by Kevin Ingram

Author:Kevin Ingram
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319932361
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

© The Author(s) 2018

Kevin IngramConverso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spainhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93236-1_6

6. Diego Velázquez and the Subtle Art of Protest

Kevin Ingram1

(1)Division of Humanities, Saint Louis University, Madrid, Spain

Kevin Ingram

Given the fact that the great Renaissance and Baroque painters were very often men of intellectual curiosity who moved in humanist circles, it would seem likely that their art would demonstrate, on occasion, the same heterodox attitudes that we have come to associate with the works of their humanist literary colleagues. Over 40 years ago, Anthony Blunt wrote that the French painter Nicolas Poussin was clearly not in sympathy with the Roman Catholicism of his own day, a fact that became apparent when one examined his circle of friends, his comments on religious matters, and above all his paintings.1 A similar assessment has been made of Titian, based on his close contact with a coterie of heterodox writers (several of whom, including Titian’s tenant Andrea di Ugoni, were tried for heresy), and upon the worldly, at times almost profane, quality of his art.2 In his essay, ‘Tiziano e la religione,’ Augusto Gentili argues that Titian’s non-conformism is expressed covertly in a number of his works, including his Entombment, in which he makes a direct allusion to his own religious dissimulation by using himself as the model for Nicodemus.3 Like Poussin and Titian, the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens also found his own humanist ideas in conflict with the confessionalism of the post-Tridentine church. In fact, Rubens’ personal religious credo was strongly influenced by Justus Lipsius’ Neostoicism, a philosophy based on the pagan scholars Seneca and Tacitus which advocated prudence and dissimulation in the interests of religious peace.

It is clear that in the Counter-Reformation environment humanist writers and artists alike looked for ways to articulate their dissident religious views while observing the necessary formalities of an orthodox faith. The trick, of course, was to pay lip service to orthodox themes, while subtly inserting a personal, dissident message for the delectation of a close circle of friends. For humanist painters, one way to contest orthodoxy was through novel renditions of standard themes. According to David Davies, this is the case of El Greco, who was attached to a predominantly converso coterie of humanist clerics in Toledo, and whose idiosyncratic forms and colors were attempts to reflect the mystical ideals of this group. While El Greco did not actually reject Tridentine orthodox artistic themes, he presented them in such a way as to subordinate external demonstrations of faith to a private mystical, or illuminist, religious experience.4 This is also the case of Diego Velázquez who, like El Greco, was closely connected to a group of humanists, again predominantly converso. Like El Greco, Velázquez, who I will argue was himself from a New Christian background, feigned compliance with the religious dictates of Trent while stealthily inserting a personal, non-conformist message into his art, first in Seville and later at the court of Philip IV, where he became a propagandist for the Count-Duke of Olivares’ reform program.

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