Territories of the Visual in Spain and Spanish America


Book Description

While studying the theory and contemporary impact of ‘embodied’ viewing, this book celebrates the emergence and development of Visual Studies as a major subject of research and teaching in the field of Hispanic Studies within the UK over the last thirty years. By exploring current routes of investigation, as well as analysing future pathways for study in the field, seven highly distinguished Spanish and Latin American scholars examine their own entry into Visual Studies, and discuss the major trends and changes which occurred in the field as matters of the visual gradually became embedded in higher-education curricula and research trajectories. Each scholar also lays out a current research project, or interest, concerning Spain or Latin America within the visual field. The projects variously explore different media – including film, sculpture, photography, dance, and performance art – spread across a wide array of geographical locales, including Mexico, Cuba, mainland Spain, and the Canary Islands. Offering a map of current and future research in the field, this book provides the first history of visual studies within UK Hispanism. It will be of lasting value to a wide range of scholars and advanced students of Spanish and Latin American cultural, visual, and film studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies.




The Spanish Element in Our Nationality”


Book Description

“The Spanish Element in Our Nationality” delves beneath the traditional “English-only” narrative of U.S. history, using Spain’s participation in a series of international exhibitions to illuminate more fully the close and contested relationship between these two countries. Written histories invariably record the Spanish financing of Columbus’s historic voyage of 1492, but few consider Spain’s continuing influence on the development of U.S. national identity. In this book, M. Elizabeth Boone investigates the reasons for this problematic memory gap by chronicling a series of Spanish displays at international fairs. Studying the exhibition of paintings, the construction of ephemeral architectural space, and other manifestations of visual culture, Boone examines how Spain sought to position itself as a contributor to U.S. national identity, and how the United States—in comparison to other nations in North and South America—subverted and ignored Spain’s messages, making it possible to marginalize and ultimately obscure Spain’s relevance to the history of the United States. Bringing attention to the rich and understudied history of Spanish artistic production in the United States, “The Spanish Element in Our Nationality” recovers the “Spanishness” of U.S. national identity and explores the means by which Americans from Santiago to San Diego used exhibitions of Spanish art and history to mold their own modern self-image.




Spain in the Age of Exploration, 1492-1819


Book Description

This publication accompanies an exhibition of approximately 120 works of art and science loaned mostly from the Royal Collection of Spain (Patrimonio Nacional) to the Seattle Art Museum. Featuring the work of such artists as Bosch, Titian, El Greco, Bernini, Vel¾zquez, Murillo, Zubar¾n, and Goya, this publication includesøpaintings, sculpture, tapestries, scientific instruments, maps, armor, books, and documents. Eight essays provide historical context and artistic explication. Chronologically organized, the book charts the evolution of Spanish attitudes toward knowledge, exploration, and faith during three dynasties of Spain?s golden age, when the fervor for scientific and geographical knowledge coexisted with the expansion of empire and promotion of Christianity. The four themes of the exhibition are: The Image of Empire; Spirituality and Worldliness; Encounters across Cultures; Science and the Court. Spain in the Age of Exploration, 1492?1819, presents art and science from one of the most ambitious, magnificent, and complex enterprises in history.




The Spanish Element in Our Nationality”


Book Description

“The Spanish Element in Our Nationality” delves beneath the traditional “English-only” narrative of U.S. history, using Spain’s participation in a series of international exhibitions to illuminate more fully the close and contested relationship between these two countries. Written histories invariably record the Spanish financing of Columbus’s historic voyage of 1492, but few consider Spain’s continuing influence on the development of U.S. national identity. In this book, M. Elizabeth Boone investigates the reasons for this problematic memory gap by chronicling a series of Spanish displays at international fairs. Studying the exhibition of paintings, the construction of ephemeral architectural space, and other manifestations of visual culture, Boone examines how Spain sought to position itself as a contributor to U.S. national identity, and how the United States—in comparison to other nations in North and South America—subverted and ignored Spain’s messages, making it possible to marginalize and ultimately obscure Spain’s relevance to the history of the United States. Bringing attention to the rich and understudied history of Spanish artistic production in the United States, “The Spanish Element in Our Nationality” recovers the “Spanishness” of U.S. national identity and explores the means by which Americans from Santiago to San Diego used exhibitions of Spanish art and history to mold their own modern self-image.




Pan-Americana


Book Description




A Visual Catalog of Jesuit Missions in Spanish America


Book Description

From the late sixteenth century until their expulsion in 1767, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) played a pivotal role in the life of Spanish America. They educated the urban population, tended to the spiritual needs of city folk, conducted “popular missions” to correct doctrinal issues with the urban and rural populations, and administered missions among the indigenous populations on the frontiers. Jesuit missions stretched from northern Mexico to Patagonia in South America, and left a considerable historical and architectural heritage and patrimony. This volume outlines the historical development of Jesuit missions located in northern Mexico and South America, and illustrates the architectural heritage they left behind.




The End Again


Book Description

Explores how definitions of Spanish modernisms from 1874 to 1923 were dependent upon the concepts of degeneration and regeneration. Analyzes the relation between these concepts by examining representations of the body in specific spaces.




Pan-Americana


Book Description




Visions of Empire in Colonial Spanish American Ekphrastic Writing


Book Description

The process of shaping cultural identity in colonial Spanish America has occurred as much through the medium of pictures as through the medium of writing. Focused on writing that references visual texts (ekphrasis), Visions of Empire in Colonial Spanish American Ekphrastic Writing examined the way words about pictures in the writing of three Spanish American Creoles negotiate the challenges that confronted the ruling elite in Spanish America during the contentious period between the Conquest and Independence.




Visual Voyages


Book Description

An unprecedented visual exploration of the intertwined histories of art and science, of the old world and the new From the voyages of Christopher Columbus to those of Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, the depiction of the natural world played a central role in shaping how people on both sides of the Atlantic understood and imaged the region we now know as Latin America. Nature provided incentives for exploration, commodities for trade, specimens for scientific investigation, and manifestations of divine forces. It also yielded a rich trove of representations, created both by natives to the region and visitors, which are the subject of this lushly illustrated book. Author Daniela Bleichmar shows that these images were not only works of art but also instruments for the production of knowledge, with scientific, social, and political repercussions. Early depictions of Latin American nature introduced European audiences to native medicines and religious practices. By the 17th century, revelatory accounts of tobacco, chocolate, and cochineal reshaped science, trade, and empire around the globe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, collections and scientific expeditions produced both patriotic and imperial visions of Latin America. Through an interdisciplinary examination of more than 150 maps, illustrated manuscripts, still lifes, and landscape paintings spanning four hundred years, Visual Voyages establishes Latin America as a critical site for scientific and artistic exploration, affirming that region's transformation and the transformation of Europe as vitally connected histories.