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- Title: Ana Maria G. Laguna. Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination: A Study on the Power of Images and Images of Power in Works by Cervantes
- Author : Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 68 KB
Description
Ana Maria G. Laguna. Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination: A Study on the Power of Images and Images of Power in Works by Cervantes. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2009. 175 pp. ISBN 978-0-8387-5727-7. This book parts from the premise that we need to "decompartmentalize" our approach to Cervantes, which would involve an appreciation not just of his engagement with literature but also with the complex "visual culture" in which he lived. Laguna differentiates her project from recent work by De Armas and others in two ways: rather than focusing primarily on ekphrasis, attributing Cervantine scenes and characters to specific paintings and frescoes, she is interested in broader speculation on how Cervantes' writings were affected by an intensely "representational" culture and its varied political, aesthetic, and theological concerns; and, in addition to considering the influence of Italian masters, Laguna maintains that Cervantes was receptive to Flemish aesthetic and spiritual currents. The proposed "veiled allusions" are not always convincing, and the reader may occasionally lose track of the pictorial aspect of a particular line of inquiry. Furthermore, too much can be made of Cervantes' use of the terms pintar and retratar, which are often just synonyms for representing and describing; they do not necessarily signify an emphasis on the visual over the verbal. But Laguna's approach allows for the treatment of significant issues, some of them well worn (Don Quijote asa critique of decadent monarchic pretensions), some suggestively novel (El coloquio de los perros and the representational logic of Northern still-lifes).