Ruth Leon recommends…Look again: rethinking Spain & the Spanish Americas
Ruth Leon recommendsLook Again: European Paintings—Rethinking Spain & The Spanish Americas
One thing I’m definitely going to do when I get home to New York next week is to visit the newly renovated and reinstalled European Paintings galleries at The Met.
Spain’s “Golden Age”, Siglo de Oro, began in the late 1400s with the marriage of Catholic royals Isabella and Ferdinand, which united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castille. Over the next two centuries, Spain became a mighty empire through marriage alliance, conquest, and war.
Here’s a short ‘taster’ of one section of the exhibition, Look Again: European Paintings 1300-1800 as curator David Pullins and conservator Jose Luis Lazarte Luna discuss the new approach to Spanish painting of the “Golden Age”.
The renovated galleries of European paintings from the late middle ages through the 18th century opened late last year. Lighting is noticeably improved, and overall excellent. Paintings are very thoughtfully organized, often thematically within given periods. Pure heaven.
A woke approach to Spanish painting from the Golden Age: including clumsy attempts from the colonies to get at a fresh insight into the ‘canon’ of European painting.
The Spanish royals destroyed a very modern multicultural society where learning was famous all over Europe and scholars from all corners flocked to the Spanish universities to study the scrolls. Unique in Europe: Christians, Muslems and Jews lived quite peacefully together, and even intermarried without problems. Such laissez-faire was not to be seen in Europe until the late 20th century. After the reconquista, muslems or people suspected of islamic leanings, were ‘converted’ with the threat of death penalty, Jews were driven into the sea, and the notorious inquisition was installed, with the optimistic task to find any trace of apostasy and heresy in the population and extirpate deviants with torture and burning at the stake. Together with the gold stolen from the American Indians, all of this resulted in a great empire and a great art.
You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about. “Clumsy attempts from the colonies”??? None of the other English or Dutch colonies during the same time could have boasted of having such complex and rich art. But I get this could be hard to understand for you. Besides, this is not woke, believe it or not in New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, during the Spanish rule, art of great value was created, and it is as worthy as any of their Iberic counterparts.
About the rest of the same hackneyed bullsh*it you said regarding the inquisition and the “stolen gold” I recommend you to read a little bit more. Stop believing old tales that have been discredited long ago.
…. advice: just look at the colonial paintings in the video.
They are meant to throw a ‘new light’ upon European Renaissance art.
I rest my case.
Florida’s heritage is extremely rich with early Spanish colonial settlements that reinforce the diverse makeup of racial unity as a complex ethnic origin as hispanics.