Francisco Pacheco and Jerome Nadal: New Light on the Flemish Sources of the Spanish"Picture-within-the-Picture"Author(s): John F. MoffittSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 631-638Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3045765Accessed: 07/10/2009 12:09

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Francisco Pacheco and Jerome Nadal: New Light on the Flemish Sources of the Spanish "Picture-within-the-Picture"

John E Moffitt "Asi lo estampo el padre Nadal."

-Francisco Pacheco (1638)

The role of Netherlandish prints in providing composi- tional prototypes for Spanish artists of the Siglo de Oro is increasingly being considered significant, since the matter was first surveyed in a fairly comprehensive fashion in 1948 by the late Martin Soria.1 More recently, Netherlandish prints (particularly in the form of illustrations in emblem books) have been shown to have formed a point of de- parture for many Spanish artists.2 The geographical exten- sion of such practices is striking. For instance, some studies have documented the indispensability of these well-trav- eled graphic materials for artists working in Latin Amer- ica,3 and Northern engravings can even be credited with having spawned certain characteristic motifs seen in Ba- roque architectural designs in the New World.4 As such findings reveal, a densely detailed Netherlandish print was for Spaniards more often than not the preferred icono- graphic source. The focus of this essay is a single com- positional device, in effect a narrative format, that was to become a characteristic staple of Spanish Baroque painting, the so-called "cuadro dentro del cuadro," or "the picture- within-the-picture."/5

The first instance of what was to become the typically

1 M. Soria, "Some Flemish Sources of Baroque Painting in Spain," Art Bulletin, xxx, 1948, 249-259. 2 For the emblematic sources in particular, see esp. J. Gallego, Visi6n y simbolos en la pintura espaiola del Siglo de Oro, Madrid, 1972; and S. Sebastian, Contrarreforma y barroco: Lecturas iconograficas e iconol6- gicas, Madrid, 1981. Dr. Sebastian has since published many other studies on the same issue. 3 For the impact of Netherlandish prints in the New World, see esp. P. Kelemen, Baroque and Rococo in Latin America, New York, 1951; M.B. Burke, Spain and New Spain: Mexican Colonial Arts in Their European Context, Corpus Christi, 1979; and S. Sebastian, Arte iberoamericano, desde la colonizacion a la independencia, Madrid, 2 vols., 1985-86. 4 See esp. J.F. Moffitt, "Wendel Dietterlin and the Estipite. Observations on Architectural Style in Colonial Mexican Ecclesiastical Facades: 'Ba- roque,' or 'Neo-Mannerist'?" Boletin del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueologia de la Universidad de Valladolid, L, 1984, 325-349. 5 On this compositional motif, see B. Mestre Fiol, El cuadro en el cuadro: Pacheco, Velazquez, Mazo, Manet, Palma de Mallorca, 1977; A. Chastel, "Le Tableau dans le tableau" in Fables, formes, figures, Paris, 1978, II, 75-97; and J. Gallego, El cuadro dentro del cuadro, Madrid, 1978. Al- though Gallego demonstrates that this motif, with its innumerable vari- ations, is found throughout the history of art, it is my intention only to

Iberian treatment of this device dates to 1616, appearing in Saint Irene Healing the Wounds of Saint Sebastian (Fig. 1) painted by Francisco Pacheco (1564-1654).6 According to Priscilla E. Muller, Pacheco's painting contains those generalized Flemish characteristics of "immobility, com- positional symmetry, . . . dichotomy of perspective (sep- arate vanishing-points in the earthly and the celestial areas), [and] similarity of pose and gesture in the figures." As she concludes, "the traits of Hispano-Flemish painting of the earlier sixteenth-century (correctness, reticence and exact- itude) remained [Pacheco's] heritage."7 What is especially noteworthy in the composition of the canvas is Pacheco's inclusion of an enframed scene, illustrating the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. As has been recently demonstrated, the model for Pacheco's "cuadro dentro del cuadro" was a Flemish print of the same title, by Jan Harmensz. Muller (Fig. 2).8 Regardless of its particular graphic source, it is even more significant that Pacheco employed the motif for a specific purpose: to illustrate an episode that had tran- spired before the moment represented in the scene in the foreground of the painting, showing the obviously later moment of the healing of the arrow wounds. The result is what we may call "temporal displacement." Even though Pacheco's painting no longer exists (it was destroyed in 1936 during the first months of the Spanish Civil War), the artist

analyze the strictly Spanish adaptations of the device and, additionally, to reveal the didactic purposes of its original and very specific, Flemish source. 6 On this artist, see J.M. Ascenci6 y Toledo, Francisco Pacheco, sus obras artisticas y literarias, Seville, 1867; A.L. Mayer, Die Sevillaner Maler- schule, Leipzig, 1911, 90-101; F. Rodriguez Marin, Francisco Pacheco, Maestro de Velazquez, Madrid, 1923; P.E. Muller, "Francisco Pacheco as a Painter," Marsyas, x, 1961, 39-44; M. Barbadilla, Pacheco, su tierra y su tiempo, Jerez de la Frontera, 1964; J. Brown, Images and Ideas in Sev- enteenth-Century Spanish Painting, Princeton, 1978, 32-48; E. Bermejo, "Influencia de una obra flamenca en Francisco Pacheco," Archivo espaiol de arte, LV, 1982, 3-8; and S.A. Vosters, "Lampsonio, Vasari, van Mander y Pacheco," Goya, Nov.-Dec. 1985, 130-139. 7 Muller (as in n. 6), 39. 8 This iconographic source was only recently identified by different schol- ars: E. Valdivieso Gonzalez and J.M. Serrera Contreras, Pintura sevillana del primer tercio del siglo XVII (Historia de la pintura espaiola), Madrid, 1985, cat. no. 239; and L. Konecny, "Una ojeada en la 'carcel dorada' del maestro Pacheco," Boletin del Museo e Instituto Camon Aznar, xxvII, 1987, 17-25. As these different authors indicate, the print had been derived in its turn from a painting by Hans van Aachen of ca. 1588.

632 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1990 VOLUME LXXII NUMBER 4

1 F Pacheco, Saint Irene Healing the Wounds of Saint Sebas- tian, 1616 (formerly Alcala de Guadaira)

wrote in some detail about his unusual work, so different from any other Saint Sebastian known to us.9

Given this published testimony, the rather unusual em- phasis placed upon the nurse-like ministrations of Saint Irene in the foreground is easily explained by the painting's intended destination. According to Pacheco, his picture was commissioned "para un Hospital de San Sebastian de Al- cala de Guadaira, donde hay una Cofradia de la Miseri- cordia que viste algunos pobres, cura y da medicinas a nat- urales y forasteros."10 Pacheco also remarked upon the other odd iconographic features in the painting. As he explained, there is "a window on the wall, through which the Saint is seen in a field, tied to a tree, where he is being shot at with arrows."1l He makes it clear that foremost in his mind is the sense of temporal displacement. This is the factor predetermining the painter's unusual, two-stage, narrative- compositional arrangement. The "present moment" occu-

9 F.J. Sanchez Cant6n, ed., Francisco Pacheco: Arte de la pintura. Edici6n del manuscrito original acabada el 24 de enero de 1638, 2 vols., Madrid, 1956, II, 327-330. For other kinds of representations of the saint in ques- tion, see V. Kraehling, Saint Sebastien dans 'art, Paris, 1938; M. Sandoz, "Ribera et le theme de 'Saint Sebastien soigne par Irene,"' Cahiers de Bor- deaux, 1955, 65-78; F. Le Targat, Saint Sebastien dans I'histoire de l'art

2 Jan Harmensz. Muller, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, ca. 1598

pies the foreground: "Aquella Santa viuda Irene que le cur6 de las heridas." This present moment/foreground motif is complemented by an event in the past represented by the picture-within-the-picture, which takes place in the back- ground of the picture, "donde le estan asaeteando." Pa- checo concluded his statement by alluding to a third, or "future moment" (which he did not depict), when the saint was definitively dispatched at the order of the Roman emperor.

Although Pacheco was a decidedly stiff and mediocre painter, he remains significant, first, as a writer who doc- uments the peculiar polemics of early seventeenth-century Spanish art theory, and, second, as the teacher (and future father-in-law) of Diego Velazquez (1599-1660), the fore- most painter of the Siglo de Oro. A work like Pacheco's Saints Sebastian and Irene, particularly in its distinctive compositional aspects, represented a significant influence

depuis le XVe siecle, Paris, 1979; and S. Forestier, Saint Sebastien: Rituels et figures, Paris, 1983. 10 Pacheco (as in n. 9), 327.

11 Ibid., 328.

FRANCISCO PACHECO AND JEROME NADAL 633

3 Diego Velazquez, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, ca. 1618. London, National Gallery

4 Diego Velazquez, The Fable of Arachne and Minerva ("Las Hilan- deras"), ca. 1659. Madrid, Museo del Prado

upon the greater talents of the pupil. Supporting this as- sertion is the evidence of two paintings, from the very be-

ginning and the end of Velazquez's long and distinguished career: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (ca. 1618) and, finally, The Fable of Arachne and Minerva ("Las Hil- anderas") from around 1659 (Figs. 3, 4). Since recent stud- ies have discussed the narrative basis of the anomalous tem-

poral displacement characterizing these two paintings, the

arguments involved need not be repeated.12 In any event,

12 See, reviewing the literature, J.F. Moffitt, "'Terebat in Mortario': Symbolism in Velazquez's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, " Arte christiana, LXVII, 700, 1984, 13-24; and idem, "Painting, Music and Poetry in Velazquez's Las Hilanderas," Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, LIV, 2, 1985, 77-

this aspect of the paintings by Velazquez must ultimately have stemmed from Pacheco's practice, as exemplified by his lost painting of 1616. The specific point to be considered here is the matter of the origin and significance of Pacheco's initial appropriation of the formal invention, later to be used with more spectacular results by his gifted pupil.

It has been repeatedly observed that the source for Pa- checo's compositional anomaly was Flemish in origin. This conclusion is quite correct, but only in a very general, or

90 (these and other studies will be collectively published as Velazquez: Practica e idea, University of Malaga Press, 1991). For a re- buttal of the idea of temporal displacement, see Brown (as in n. 39 below).

634 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1990 VOLUME LXXII NUMBER 4

5 Pieter Aertsen, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1553. Rotterdam, Boymans-Van Beunin- gen Museum

geographical sense. Adherents of the proposition generally concur in pointing specifically to the unusual "kitchen- and market-scenes," with traditional biblical narratives hidden in the backgrounds, that were painted by Pieter Aertsen (ca. 1508-75) and his disciple Joachim Beuckelaer (ca. 1535- 74).13 How do these hypothetical models support the cur- rent hypothesis? The representative example is Aertsen's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, a painting dating from 1553 (Fig. 5).14 Commenting on this work, Julian Gal-

lego acutely observed how "neither Beuckelaer nor Aertsen ever clearly arrives at systematically employing one scene in order to explain the other" within the same picture. He concluded that "their originality consists in the juxtaposi- tion of one sacred scene to another [quite different] profane scene, with the former being placed in the foreground," where it functions as a "vanitas" motif (significatio in malo).15 It is also quite apparent that in the Spanish ex- amples cited here (Figs. 1, 3, 4), neither Pacheco nor Ve- lazquez ever meant to disrupt the narrative flow, running from foreground to background, or from past to present.16 Also contrary to the supposed precedent of the Flemish painters is the fact that the two Spaniards have in effect

13 The conclusion about Aertsen and Beuckelaer had been reached by, among others, Julian Gallego (as in n. 5), 159-162; idem, Velazquez en Sevilla, Seville, 1974, 102-103; idem, Diego Velazquez, Barcelona, 1983, 42-43; J.-E. Muller, Velazquez, London, 1976, 32-33; M.M. Kahr, Velaz- quez: The Art of Painting, New York, 1976, 15; and J. Brown, Velazquez, Painter and Courtier, New Haven, 1986, 15-16. 14 On these two Flemish painters, respectively uncle and nephew, see K.P.F. Moxey, Pieter Aertsen, Joachim Beuckelaer and the Rise of Secular Paint- ing in the Context of the Reformation, New York, 1977; for my example by Aertsen, see the discussion on pp. 44-51.

depicted the same protagonists in the foreground and back- ground of the given scene, and from one moment of the given story to another. In this case, the fundamental con- cepts underlying the functioning of bipartite compositional practice were radically different in Flanders and in Spain. The Spanish examples, furthermore, represent an anach- ronism, using a typically "medieval" compositional tech- nique known as "simultaneous narrative," so characteristic of, for example, the contrasted, Old vs. New Testament time sequences of the Biblia pauperum.

As a result, there is no evidence of the moralizing func- tion of the compositional device that Aertsen and Beucke- laer used; with them, the caesura is locational and not tem- poral, and it specifically underlines a wide separation between the zones of the sacred and the profane. On the contrary, for Pacheco and Velazquez there is no such dis- ruption. Instead, there is only a seamless narrative conti- nuity, itself a function of the peculiarly Iberian principle of temporal displacement. Not only are the two sorts of bipartite paintings markedly different in intention, but there is also no evidence in Spain of paintings by either Aertsen or Beuckelaer at that time, or prints by them, that specif-

15 Gallego (as in n. 5), 161. According to another scholar, this compo- sitional dichotomy would have had an insistent moralizing significance: foreground "materialism" is deliberately contrasted to "divinity," ob- scured in the background: J.A. Emmens, "'Eins aber ist notig.' Zu Inhalt und Bedeutung von Markt- und Kuchenstucken des 16. Jahrhunderts," in Album Amicorum J.G. van Gelder, The Hague, 1973, 93-101. 16 See Moffitt (as in n. 12), for further details on the mechanics of this effect in the two works by Velazquez. Pacheco's terse explanation for his

appropriation of the unusual device has already been cited.

FRANCISCO PACHECO AND JEROME NADAL 635

ically copied compositions of this kind.17 There is thus no

proof for the common assertion that Pacheco took these paintings as his conceptual models. Had he been shown these works, however, he might have viewed them as sus- pect, not just as "foreign" but specifically as a "Protestant" form of expression.18 Moreover, by the end of the sixteenth- century there seems to have been native reaction in Spain against contemporary Flemish painting. For example, Fray Pedro de Vega asserted (Declaraci6n de los siete psalmos penitenciales, 1606) that "whereas Flemish paintings are truly handsome when hung high upon a wall, when seen close up they only appear to be gross daubs [borrones gro- seros], with badly placed colors and crude draftsman- ship."19 Notwithstanding this comment about Northern paintings, it is obvious that Spaniards never wavered in their acceptance of Northern engravings.

Pacheco's odd narrative device of temporal displacement was not a novelty but an anachronism in his era. Although the iconographic model for his anomalous scheme was Flemish, it came from the engravers of the Spanish Neth- erlands rather than from the painters. In the particular in- stance, the source is a suite of book illustrations executed by artists based in Antwerp, namely the three Wiericx brothers (Hieronymus, Jan, and Anthony) and others working under their artistic direction.20 By Pacheco's ac- count, he had carefully studied a set of illustrations from the Wiericx workshop that had appeared in Jerome Nadal's notable pietistic picture book of Catholic Counter-Refor-

17 A painting by Beuckelaer, The Poultry Sellers (ca. 1565), recently turned

up in a private Spanish collection, but no indication of the date of its arrival in Spain is given. In any event, the principle of temporal displace- ment is not employed in this example: M. Diaz Padr6n, "Dos tablas de Joachim Beuckelaer y de Maerten van Heemskerk in colecciones espai- olas," Archivo espaiiol de arte, no. 236, 1986, 412-415. For other com- ments on the presence of Flemish genre paintings in Madrid (none exhib-

iting this compositional trait), see S. Schroth, "Early Collectors of Still Life Painting in Castile," in Kimbell Art Museum, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age: 1600-1650, exh. cat., Fort Worth, 1985. In spite of the fun- damental differences between the Spanish and Flemish bipartite compo- sitional procedures, as these are explained here, one scholar had distin-

guished as many as five iconographic sources from the North for the

Pacheco-Velazquez bodegones: H. Soehner, "Der Herkunft der Bodegones Velazquez," in Varia Velazqueiia, Madrid, 1960, i, 233-244. 18 See Moxey (as in n. 14), 109ff, "The Image Debate: The Reformed Chal-

lenge," noting (p. 163ff) how Calvinism in effect actually encouraged "genre"-like imagery in the Netherlands. See also p. 229ff, "The Religious Attitudes of Aertsen and Beuckelaer," observing the absence of docu- mentation about the possible doctrinal allegiance of these two Flemish

painters. Apparently they were both Protestants after all, since "their work coincides with Calvin's call for an art of the visible . . . 'without any meaningful intention"' (p. 268). To the contrary, Pacheco's Catholicism was notoriously militant, and is documented as such throughout his Arte de la pintura. 19 Vega, as quoted in Rodriguez Marin (as in n. 6), 16. 20 On these illustrators, see L. Arvin, Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre des trois freres Jean, Jerome et Antoine Wiericx, Brussels, 1866; and M. Rooses, "De plaatsnijders der 'Evangelium Historiae Imagines,"' Oud Holland, ii,

1888, 277-288. 21 For the titles, dates, and places of appearance of the various editions

mation iconography, first published in Antwerp in 1593, Evangelicae historiae imagines / Ex ordine Evangeliorum quae toto anno in Missae sacrificio recitantur, / In ordinem temporis vitae Christi digestae.21 Although this Jesuit's al- bum of Catholic iconographic orthodoxy has been cited as having exerted a measurable impact upon painting in Rome,22 to date its influence upon Pacheco (and thus also Velazquez) has only been discussed in a general way as a form of orthodox doctrinal expression. There has been no specific analysis of its actual compositional effects upon Spanish painting.23 Even though this important picture book is still little cited by art historians, its significance cannot be overlooked. As Thomas Buser comments, "if the en- gravings were better known today, scholars might recog- nize adaptations of its imagery by later artists,"24 something that has recently been shown in the case of a painting by Francisco Zurbaran.2s

The Evangelicae historiae imagines consists of a series of 153 folio-size engravings, with a frontispiece. These prints illustrate significant narrative elements developed in each of the Gospels read at the Mass on Sundays. Terse legends, inscribed beneath each print, directly correspond to letters of the alphabet placed upon or near the incidents occurring within the narrative time-span of each engraved, multi- partite Gospel story. The distinctive Nadalian pictorial for- mat - employing displacements in time, either "before" or "after" the principal scene - has been cogently analyzed by Miguel Nicolau, Nadal's modern Spanish biographer:

of the Imagines, see C. Sommervogel, S.J., Bibliotheque de la compagnie de Jesus, Louvain, 1960, v, cols. 1517-20. A lengthy accompanying text by Nadal, entitled Adnotationes et meditationes, was published in 1594- 95. Although these commentaries are extensive, they do little more than reiterate the visual facts of the plates (as keyed to the letter identifications), and any further symbolic or exegetical information is rarely given the reader. The format is very much that of the spare and sense-oriented char- acter of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. I am most grateful to my colleague, Dr. Eugene R. Cunnar, of New Mexico State University, for his critical reading of this paper and for allowing me to examine his microfilm copy of the explanatory text, acquired after I lent him my copy of the 1607 edition of the folio volume of plates (of which he made good use; see n. 25 below). On the author of the Imagines, see M. Nicolau, Jeronimo Na- dal, sus obras y doctrinas espirituales, Madrid, 1949. 22 For Nadal's influence on Italian Baroque painting, see H. Hibbard, "Ut picturae sermones: The First Painted Decoration of the Gesu," in R. Witt- kower, and I.B. Jaffe, eds., Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, New York, 1972 (esp. p. 44); and T. Buser, "Jerome Nadal and Early Jesuit Art in Rome," Art Bulletin, LVIII, 1976, 424-433. 23 F. Delgado, S.J., "El Padre Jer6nimo Nadal y la pintura sevillana del siglo XVII," Archivum historicum Societas Iesu, ii, 1959, 354-363; and A. Rodriguez de Ceballos, S.J., "Las 'Imagenes de la Historia Evangelica' del P. Jeronimo Nadal en el marco del jesuitismo y la contrarreforma," Traza y baza, v, 1974, 77-95. Although Delgado's title in particular sug- gests some serious art-historical scrutiny, unfortunately neither author mentions any paintings that might have been directly influenced by the Imagines. 24 Buser (as in n. 22), 427. 25 E.R. Cunnar, "Jerome Nadal and Francisco Pacheco: A Print and a Verbal Source for Zurbaran's Circumcision (1639)," Boletin del Museo e Instituto Cam6n Aznar, xxxiii, 1988, 105-112.

636 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1990 VOLUME LXXII NUMBER 4

The manner in which these engravings reproduce the life of the Savior is as follows. A primary scene, the nucleus of the evangelical act commemorated, first catches our eye. However, either in the landscape background, or through the aperture of a window, or perhaps in the vi- cinity of the architecture depicted, there will appear let- ters demarcating different scenes connected with the principal representation. These other scenes, usually sit- uated as though they were seen in the distance, either represent the preceding steps, leading up to the main event, or they may represent successive steps, deriving from the main event, or they may also make allusions to the metaphorical language to which the evangelical narration refers. . . . The first letters of the alphabet dis- cretely signal those other parts at the same time that they refer to the "adnotationcula" containing the titles or epi- graphs of those other scenes.26

A recent student of Nadal's mnemonics, Fernando R. de la Flor, succinctly sums up the larger art-historical implica- tions of this procedure, "in which the composition is bro- ken up into a multiplicity of sub-pictures, and which there- fore seems a return to the medieval technique of pictorial fragmentation."27 With the help of Nadal's terse legends (or "captions"), all carefully keyed to the component parts of the various biblical stories, the reader-viewer was meant to meditate upon the pictures, the texts of which he would, in any event, have been expected to know already in their written form. The meditational purpose of the engravings was reinforced by the addition of complementary texts in the 1594 edition, the Adnotationes, and further enhanced a direct reading of the New Testament Scriptures. In short, Nadal's Imagines belong to the Ignatian tradition of the "Ars memoriae," a mnemonic tradition as vital in Spain as it was elsewhere.28 As De la Flor has demonstrated, how- ever, Nadal's "arte de la memoria" is indebted to native Spanish sources: besides the obvious immediate influence of Saint Ignatius's Exercitia spiritualia (1553), the Ars magna of Raymond Lull was particularly important to Na- dal.29 The strictly art-historical significance of Nadal's Imagines, above all as a devotional-mnemonic aide, should be evident, since this represents, among other things, a lit- eral embodiment of the idea of "ut sermones picturae,"30 a reshaping of the commonplace motto "ut pictura poesis"31 for contemporary Catholic purposes. As Buser reminds us, "the concept of using pictures for lessons in prayer is an important document for the purposes of art in the Counter

26 Nicolau (as in n. 21), 117. 27 F.R. de la Flor, Teatro de la Memoria: Siete ensayos sobre mnemotecnia

espanola de los siglos XVII y XVIII, Salamanca, 1988, 82. 28 On this long-standing tradition, see, besides de la Flor, the fundamental historical analysis by F.J. Yates, The Art of Memory, London, 1966; see also J. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, New York, 1985. For a late example of mnemonics in Spanish art theory, see J.F. Moffitt, "La Arcadia Pict6rica (1789) of Preciado de la Vega and the Ars Memoriae," Boletin del Museo e Instituto Cam6n Aznar, xxII, 1986, 27-34. 29 Flor (as in n. 27), 81ff.

Reformation."32 Certainly, if only for its splendid pictorial effects, Nadal's Imagines is the most important document of this kind that survives.

In the preface to the "Adnotationes" - the second part of Nadal's Imagines, consisting of learned exegetical an- notations about each lettered incident displayed in the sep- arately bound picture-book - Nadal explains that this manual had been composed in order "to afford seminarians of the [Jesuit] Society continual and ready material and profit for meditating and praying." As stated in the preface, it was Saint Ignatius himself who had charged Father Je- rome Nadal with the task of completing the Imagines; ac- cordingly, the form and the content of the picture book naturally derive from the Ignatian concept of "compositio loci," or mental reconstructions of given religious scenes, a procedure recommended some years previously by Loy- ola in his highly influential meditative manual, the Exer- citia spiritualia. The concept underlying Nadal's Imagines also fulfills the Tridentine dictate of 1563, ordering the "bishops diligently to teach that, by means of the stories of the mysteries of our redemption portrayed in paintings and other representations, the people are instructed and confirmed in the articles of the Faith, which ought to be borne in mind and constantly reflected upon." These de- votional images are repeatedly recommended as "salutary examples [that] are set before the eyes of the faithful."33

For a pious Catholic artist like Pacheco, the Imagines represented two great virtues: scriptural exactitude and doctrinal authority. As Pacheco put it, such a lavishly il- lustrated devotional work represented "la verdad y el de- coro." A third factor, largely of interest to a devout painter, was that this collection of minutely detailed engravings em- ployed and, in 1593, "modernized" the venerable compo- sitional format of temporal displacement. This process of pictorial and narrative fragmentation was largely confined to the Imagines at the time of its appearance. Alonzo Rod- riguez de Ceballos points out that the compositional pro- cedure is centered upon:

... A Gospel scene broken up or subdivided into var- ious temporal or psychological moments, to each of which there is affixed a letter which points to the ex- planatory commentary found in the Adnotationes. This procedure, by which the larger composition is subdi- vided into a multitude of internal pictures, appears to represent a reversion to medieval techniques of pictorial fragmentation. The result is the loss of that unity of vi-

30 For this term, see Hibbard (as in n. 22). 31 For this term (and its wide-ranging art-historical implications), see the classic study by R.W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York, 1967.

33 Buser (as in n. 22), 425. 33 H.J. Schroeder, O.P., ed., The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Rockford, Ill., 1978, 216; for the Latin text, see J.D. Mansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, repr. Graz, 1961, xxxiiI, 171.

FRANCISCO PACHECO AND JEROME NADAL 637

sion which had been so laboriously acquired in the Ren- aissance. But this result largely proves that we are deal-

ing with Mannerist, not Renaissance, prints, specifically with a "reformed" Mannerism that subordinates the aes- thetic value of the image to its strictly functional value as a pedagogical tool. Narrative dispersion is neverthe- less unified through an imposed system of single-point perspective and by the subordination of the comple- mentary scenes to the principal one. The subsidiary com-

positions with the minor figures have additionally been endowed with a powerful realism arising from the scru-

pulous observation of naturalistic minutiae that had never been lost in Northern painting.34

One engraving taken from the complete set of 154 prints contained in the Imagines will suffice to exemplify all the

peculiar compositional traits enumerated by Nicolau, de la Flor, and Ceballos as characterizing the pictorial proce- dures common to Nadal's work - and to those compo- sitional features described as generally pertaining to Pa- checo's painting of Saints Sebastian and Irene (Fig. 1).35 This example is Nadal's second plate, signed by Hierony- mus Wiericx and illustrating the Visitation ("In die Visi- tationis") (Fig. 6). There are at least a half-dozen "pictures- within-the-picture" within this single, meticulously cut

plate, but one subsidiary scene is notable. Situated in the exact center of Nadal's engraving, this literally "enframed" vignette represents the closest compositional and func- tional analogue to the curious structural device character- izing Pacheco's often discussed picture. As in the Spaniard's painting, we look out of the scene and through a rectan-

gular opening cut into the rear wall of the chamber. By means of this time-telescoping device, one is permitted to

spy upon a secondary scene, distant in space as well as in time. As in Pacheco's painting, the far-off "cuadro dentro del cuadro" in Nadal's print complements the significance of the tableau vivant in the foreground. Closest to us is the "principal scene," set within an ordinary house, in which Saint Anne ("E") greets the Virgin Mary ("D"). Directly above the saluting pair is the principal/central comple- mentary vignette, the picture-within-the-picture. Seen through a window - as in Pacheco's painting - this nar- rative embellishment takes place outside of the house, and is similarly placed within a landscape. Labeled "I," ac-

cording to the caption, this vignette represents "Post eius ortum, redit Nazareth Maria Virgo Mater cum Joseph." In other words, this is what occurred "after the birth of him," that is, Saint John the Baptist ("H"), shown to the far left

through an arched portal. After that event, we see "the

Virgin Mary, a mother [to-be], returning to Nazareth with

Joseph."

34 Ceballos (as in n. 23), 89-90.

35 Pacheco's painting of Saints Sebastian and Irene does not, of course, directly derive from Nadal's Imagines. Since the Saint Sebastian story is

largely apocryphal, it has no place in the Imagines, only depicting Gospel materials relating to the Divine Office. In this case, we also know that Pacheco's choice of subject matter was really no choice at all, since he

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nast ad ?1iASII. I. Pai7 eI ws, nn. t at N,asartt Mart E. SeAiMS Ji sw rvnI Am tam b iMarr Mrrn lIfiph.

6 Hieronymus Wiericx, "The Visitation" (from J. Nadal, Evangelicae historiae imagines, Antwerp, 1607)

As Nadal's abbreviated caption makes clear, the real link between the two scenes, one in the foreground and the other in the background, is strictly narrative in nature. What is displayed in the background, directly placed behind and above the titular image, is a scene enacted at a later mo- ment, situated within the extended temporal framework of a given scriptural narrative: the foreground depicts Luke 1:40, whereas the background illustrates Luke 1:56. Here are the narrative-derived compositional principles of tem- poral displacement, and they are a consistent factor in all the 154 plates composing Nadal's Imagines. The volume represents, in short, the comprehensive iconographic source linking (and thus explaining) the three temporally displaced

had received a commission from a hospital dedicated to the warrior-saint, and Saint Irene had to be included in his picture to make a specific ref- erence to the healing mission of the donor institution. In any event, Pa- checo also identifies for us the specific textual source of his painting: Car- dinal Cesare Baronio's Annotationes in martyrologium romanum (Arte, in, 327).

638 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1990 VOLUME LXXII NUMBER 4

paintings by Pacheco and Velazquez illustrated in Figures 1, 3, and 4. The only difference between the engraved source and the later paintings derived from its anomalous compositional principles is that Pacheco and Velazquez de- cided to dispense with the letter labels and their corre- sponding captions.

Complementing the pictorial evidence, it can be shown that Francisco Pacheco knew of Nadal's often reprinted Imagines, which had recently reintroduced anachronistic principles of temporal displacement into modern Spanish Counter-Reformation art. In fact, Pacheco went so far as to state that he regarded Nadal's Imagines as a largely un- rivaled authority on questions of orthodox Catholic icon- ography. Accordingly, in his Arte de la pintura, he ap- provingly cited Nadal's unsurpassed expertise in such matters on no less than twenty different occasions.36 For our purposes, it is sufficient to observe how on one oc- casion, describing in fact just how one ought to paint the Visitation, Pacheco decisively announced that "asi lo es- tampo el padre Nadal."37

If nothing else, this statement proves that Pacheco cer- tainly knew the plate that has been cited as a model for the consistently applied Nadalian techniques of temporal dis-

placement. Pacheco's repeated verbal allusions to the many other plates illustrating Nadal's exemplary picture-album of Counter-Reformation iconographic orthodoxy thus should establish the Spaniards' view of the lavishly illus- trated meditative manual: they considered it the greatest

36 For quick reference to all of Pacheco's citations of Nadal, either his

authority or his Imagines, see the index added to the modern edition of the Arte, II, 462. 37 Ibid., II, 325. 38 It is surprising that no art historian has ever made the visual linkage between Nadal's and Pacheco's pictorial imagery; certainly anyone who has read the latter's Arte, a work very well known to students of Spanish art, recognizes Pacheco's almost slavish dependance on this published source. See also Delgado (as in n. 22), esp. pp. 361-363, who had com- mented at some length about Pacheco's repeated citations of the authority of the strictly pictorial details of the plates in the Imagines, but, alas, in the end he too made no attempt at cogent formal comparisons with Pa- checo's painted oeuvre. Since Pacheco's paintings are generally thin stuff, the real motivation for this investigation was a better understanding of the reasons (or autoridad) for Velazquez's occasional allegiance to the

principle of temporal displacement. 39 In his fine recent monograph, Velazquez, Painter and Courtier (1986), Jonathan Brown asserts (p. 285) that "in only one instance did Velazquez paint a picture with consecutive narration, in which the same characters

reappear in different parts of the composition." The single instance of a

single authority on the proper manner of visually re- creating the textual components of religious subject mat- ter.38 As proved by his now-lost painting of Saint Sebastian and Irene (and what must have been others like it), Pacheco wholeheartedly embraced the unique Nadalian pictorial principle of temporal narrative displacement. This evi- dence also demonstrates that Velazquez found Pacheco's workshop procedure useful to his painterly pursuits, for

example for purposes of drawing an odd moral from a Clas- sical mythological subject, as in Las Hilanderas (Fig. 4). These findings also throw new light on Velazquez's com- positional methods,39 suggesting that he was on occasion very likely to have deliberately employed principles of tem- poral displacement in a way that had already become tra- ditional in Spanish painting of the Siglo de Oro. In this case, the autoridad propelling the odd decision was not so much Francisco Pacheco but instead Father Jerome Nadal, from whom Pacheco had initially derived the anachronistic narrative technique that he repeatedly championed in his influential book, the Arte de la pintura.40

John F Moffitt has published numerous studies dealing with aspects of Spanish art. His most recent book, Occultism in Avant-Garde Art (UMI Research Press, 1988), focuses on the work of Joseph Beuys [Department of Art, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-0001].

temporally displaced composition that Brown admits is Velazquez's Land-

scape with Saint Anthony and Paul the Hermit (ca. 1633, Prado) where the two saints appear no less than three times within the same canvas; "then," says Brown, "he left no doubt about his intentions." For arguments to the opposite effect, that Velazquez resorted to the device in two other

major paintings, see the articles cited in n. 12 above. 40 I believe that we can even trace the presence of Pacheco's own, often consulted copy of the Imagines into his pupil's personal library, and up to the year 1660. In the posthumous inventory of Velazquez's effects, the

following title turns up among his books: "No. 492. - Figuras de la Biblia." Even without an author's name attached to this brief citation of a folio volume of engraved plates of "Scenes from the Bible," unaccompanied by any text, I am quite sure that its author was "Jer6nimo Nadal, S.J." For the bibliographic inventory, see Varia Velazqueia, Madrid, 1960, ii, 397- 399. Here Pacheco's book appears as "455. - Libro [del arte] de la pintura y su antigiiedad." Since many of the published sources cited in the Arte de la pintura also reappear in the 1660 inventories of Velazquez's posse- sions, it may be assumed that at his death Pacheco bequeathed his library to his son-in-law.