Criticón (Jan 2012)

En torno a las Soledades: el abad de Rute y los lienzos de Flandes

  • Emmanuelle Huard-Baudry

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/criticon.1366
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 114
pp. 139 – 178

Abstract

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In his Examen del Antídoto in which he praises the Soledades of Góngora, Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, the abbot of Rute, compares this baroque poem with Flemish landscape painting or «canvas of Flanders». If he is not the only one who applied a pictorial speech to the poetry, he is however the first one, from what we know, who qualified the landscape aspect of the Soledades. Which paintings did this humanist of the seventeenth century have in mind when he talked about «the canvas of Flanders»? How is this term applied to the landscape of Góngora? We will try to identify which Flemish paintings the abbot of Rute could know, by limiting ourselves to works prior to 1617, date of writing of his praise, and focusing on Spanish and also Italian collections, since the abbot of Rute actually lived in Spain and Italy. The comparison will specify the similarities of the poem with Flemish painting but also show Góngora’s personal answer to the artistic problem, crucial at that time: the representation of nature.

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