Leonardo M Bacarreza Dissertation
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Food, Eating, and the Anxiety of Belonging in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature and Art by Leonardo Mauricio Bacarreza Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Margaret R. Greer, Supervisor ___________________________ Sarah Schroth ___________________________ Laura R. Bass ___________________________ Richard Rosa ___________________________ José María Rodríguez-García Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 ABSTRACT Food, Eating, and the Anxiety of Belonging in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature and Art by Leonardo Mauricio Bacarreza Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Margaret R. Greer, Supervisor ___________________________ Sarah Schroth ___________________________ Laura R. Bass ___________________________ Richard Rosa ___________________________ José María Rodríguez-García An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 Copyright by Leonardo Mauricio Bacarreza 2012 Abstract In my dissertation I propose that the detailed representation of food and eating in seventeenth-century Spanish art and literature has a double purpose: to reaffirm a state of well-being in Spain, and to show a critical position, because artistic creations emphasize those subjects who, because of social status or cultural background, do not share such benefits. This double purpose explains why literature and painting stress the distance between foodstuffs and consumers, turning food into a commodity that cannot be consumed directly, but through its representation and value. Cervantes’s writing is invoked because, especially in Don Quixote, readers can see how the protagonist rejects food for the sake of achieving higher chivalric values, while his companion, Sancho Panza, faces the opposite problem: having food at hand and not being able to enjoy it, especially when he achieves his dream of ruling an island. The principle is similar in genre painting: food is consumed out of the picture in still lifes, or out of the hands of the represented characters in kitchen scenes, for they are depicted cooking for others. Because of the distance between product and consumer, foodstuffs indicate how precedence and authority are established and reproduced in society. In artistic representations, these apparently unchangeable principles are mimicked by the lower classes and used to establish parallel systems of authority such as the guild of thieves who are presented around a table in a scene of Cervantes’s exemplary novel “Rinconete and Cortadillo.” Another problem to which the representation of foodstuffs responds is the inclusion of New Christians from different origins. In a counterpoint with the scenes in which precedence is discussed, and frequently through similar aesthetic structures, Cervantes and his contemporaries create scenes where the Christian principle of sharing food and drinking wine together is the model of inclusion that dissolves distinctions between Old and New Christians. I argue that this alternative project iv of community can be related to the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, decreed in 1609, because this event made many subjects interrogate themselves about their own status and inclusion. An artistic model of response to these interrogations about belonging is the figure of the roadside meal, which appears as the main motif of a meal shared by Sancho and a self- proclaimed Christian Morisco in the second part of Don Quixote, and reappears in a painting by Diego de Velázquez, which presents in the foreground a dark-skinned servant working in a kitchen, and in the background another roadside meal: the Supper at Emmaus. Both in literature and painting the way of preparing meals, eating and drinking creates ties, establishes a different principle of belonging, and promotes unity. In this alternative model characters are recognized as subjects of the kingdom as long as they eat and drink the way Christians do. Even though this model still leads to a single Christian kingdom, paintings and writings suggest a different form of cohesion, in which subjects are considered equal and recognize each other because of their participation. v Contents Abstract iv List of Tables viii List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xii Introduction 1 1. Food, Eating, and the Anxiety of Belonging 13 1.1. The Coin, the Hen, and the Mysterious Character of the Commodity Form 13 1.2. A Material Approach to the Study of Food in the Spanish Golden Age 18 1.3. Food and the Artistic Representation of Everyday Life 26 1.4. Food, Consumption and Community: The Anxiety of Belonging 36 1.5. Food as a Symbolic Element 52 1.6. Humors, Characters and Signs of Belonging 67 2. Don Quixote: Aesthetics, Eating, and Consumption 78 2.1. Don Quixote, Paid in Full and Paid in Food 78 2.2. Food consumption in Don Quixote 80 2.3. Don Quixote: Food and Plot Development 101 2.4. The Pictorial Context of Food Consumption in Don Quixote 113 3. The Problem of Precedence 130 3.1. The Dialogue Between Babieca and Rocinante 135 3.2. Sánchez Cotán and the “Mysterious Character of the Commodity-Form” 141 3.3. Sitting Around the Symbolic Table 155 3.4. Monipodio’s Banquet 166 3.5. Precedence, Visual Models, and the Material World 176 4. “From Many Different Grains One Single Bread is Made” 178 vi 4.1. Wheat and Raisins 182 4.2. The Hand of Dulcinea 187 4.3. Salt, Wine, and Ham Bones 199 4.4. The Other Roadside Meal 224 Conclusion 252 References 262 1. Food in Don Quixote and Material Culture in the Works and World of Miguel de Cervantes 262 2. Art in Seventeenth-Century Spain, Art History and Theory 272 3. Literary Theory and Materialist Approaches to Literature and Food 277 Biography 281 vii List of Tables Table 1: Analysis of Don Quixote’s Diet 86 viii List of Figures Figure 1. Alejandro de Loarte, La gallinera (The Poultry Vendor), 1626, oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm, private collection, Madrid. 14 Figure 2. Francisco de Zurbarán, Still Life with Basket of Oranges, 1633, detail, The Norton Simon Foundations, Pasadena, California. 32 Figure 3. Antonio de Pereda, Kitchen Scene (Allegory of Lost Virtue), ca. 1650-5, detail, The Douglas-Pennant collection (The National Trust), Penrhyin Castle. 32 Figure 4. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Old Woman Frying Eggs, 1618, detail, The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. 33 Figure 5. Anonymous, The Bodegon Keeper, detail, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 33 Figure 6. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Los borrachos, detail, Museo del Prado, Madrid. 55 Figure 7. Anonymous, The Bodegon Keeper, detail, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 55 Figure 8. Antonio de Pereda, The Knight’s Dream, oil on canvas, 152 x 217 cm, Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid. 62 Figure 9. Antonio de Pereda, Vanitas, oil on canvas, 139.5 x 174 cm, Kunsthhistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna. 63 Figure 10. Antonio de Pereda,Vanitas, oil on canvas, 31 x 37 cm, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, Zaragoza. 64 Figure 11. Antonio de Pereda, Walnuts, 1635, oil on panel, 20.7 cm, Private collection, Spain. 64 Figure 12. Juan van der Hamen y León, Still life with sweets, 1621, oil on canvas, 37.5 x 49 cm, Museo de Bellas Artes, Granada. 70 Figure 13. Juan van der Hamen y León, Still life with sweets, 1622, oil on canvas, 58 x 97 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, Cleveland. 70 Figure 14. Jusepe de Ribera, Sense of Sight, 1611/13-1616, oil on canvas, 115.9 x 88.3 cm, Franz Mayer Collection, Mexico City. 120 Figure 15. Jusepe de Ribera, Sense of Touch, 1611/13-1616, oil on canvas, 115.9 x 88.3 cm, Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena. 120 Figure 16. Anonymous, after Jusepe de Ribera, Sense of Hearing, oil on canvas, Europahaus, Vienna. 120 ix Figure 17. Jusepe de Ribera, Sense of Smell, 1611/13-1616, oil on canvas, 115.9 x 88.3 cm, Juan Abelló Collection, Madrid. 120 Figure 18. Jusepe de Ribera, Sense of Taste, 1611/13-1616, oil on canvas,113.8 x 88.3 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection. 120 Figure 19. Juan van der Hamen y León, Plate with Bacon, Bread, and Wine, about 1621, oil on canvas remounted on wood, 37 x 43 cm, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels. 125 Figure 20. Juan van der Hamen y León, Great Fruit Bowl with Plates of Cakes and Sweets, about 1621, oil on canvas, 84 x 104 cm, Banco de España Collection (P-69), Madrid. 125 Figure 21. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Two Men at a Table, oil on canvas, Wellington Museum, London. 126 Figure 22. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, The Luncheon, Ermitage Museum, Leningrad. 127 Figure 23. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, An Old Woman Frying Eggs, 1618, oil on canvas, 99 x128 cm, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. 127 Figure 24. Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, c. 1600, oil on canvas, 69.2 x 85.1 cm, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego. 142 Figure 25. Juan Sánchez Cotán, Cardoon and Parsnips, 63 x 85 cm, Museo de Bellas Artes, Granada. 143 Figure 26. Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Game Fowl, c. 1600, oil on canvas, 67.8 x 88.7 cm, Chicago Art Institute, Chicago. 153 Figure 27. Cornelis Cort, Holy Supper, 1578, print based on Livio Agresti da Forlivetano, in Benito Navarrete Prieto, La pintura andaluza del siglo XVII y sus fuentes grabadas, 112. 161 Figure 28. Pedro de Morales, Holy Supper, convent of Santa Clara in Carmona, Spain, in Benito Navarrete Prieto, La pintura andaluza del siglo XVII y sus fuentes grabadas, 113.