The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain (review)

The first thought that comes to mind when one picks up The Drama of the Portrait by Laura R. Bass is how attractive it is: beautifully bound in red cloth and protected by a lovely dust jacket, the book does not automatically look like a critical study of early modern Spanish drama. And, indeed, with 67 illustrations, nearly all in glossy color, one might mistake it for an art book. From these first impressions through the final pages, The Pennsylvania State University Press and its author are to be commended for giving us such a fine book.

If the appearance of the book could lead one to think it examines early modern Spanish art, the title and the theatrical works chosen for critical examination might, too. But, that's just the point. Bass compares Spanish Golden Age comedias alongside other visual cultural forms of the period—portraiture, miniatures, etchings, drawings, sculpture, and other art pieces—to demonstrate a complex interconnectedness and interdependence. In Bass' analyses, painting and drama are complex cultural and ideological practices that often circulate within the same socio-political and cultural realm: sometimes art and artists drive the plot of a play, at times there is an off-stage reciprocity between particular artists and dramas (or dramatists and art works), and occasionally dramatists and painters are amazingly similar in their goals—not just in the works they create but also in their search for royal commendation for their professional practice (both Lope de Vega and Diego Velázquez were successful in achieving royal status). Examined within the context of the political history of early modern Spain, The Drama of the Portrait provokes intriguing questions about visual culture of the period, and provides ample discussion on the interplay of art and drama that reveals multifaceted power structures and complex socio-cultural expectations.

Using the well-known example of Rosaura's miniature portrait from Calderón's La vida es sueño, the Introduction, "Dramas of the Portrait," discusses the rise of portraiture in Spain starting in the fifteenth century. In the play, Rosaura has been been abandonded by Astolfo who still carries her portrait. In an effort to safeguard her own identity, she is determined to recover her likeness so that it does not fall into the hands of her rival, Estrella. As can be garnered from the Rosaura example, portraits can be deemed "social commerce" (7) that were not just "mementos of relatives deceased or living far away and tokens of affection between friends and family members" (8). Indeed, as Rosaura's case indicates, the portrait is linked to questions of identity and independence since, as Bass points out, having one's portrait painted marked the height of riches and status, but also became a commercial means of sustenance for some unprincipled painters and buyers: "The risks inherent in the painted likeness of a person are what fuel the majority of the dramas of the portrait of the seventeenth-century Spanish stage, as portraits are misapprehended, surreptitiously painted, reduplicated, and often circulated without the sitter's knowing" (8). Just as paintings (both in miniature and full-length) in early modern period could display a negative connotation that detracted from the value of the sitter, so too could they act as a harmful force in the plot of some Golden Age plays.

Chapter One, "Visual Literacy and Urban Comedy," examines Lope's La dama boba grounded in discussions of coinage and monetary policy in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain. Bass begins her analysis of the play by describing the nature of portraiture among the wealthy in Madrid. As she indicates, portraits were often displayed in the homes of the wealthy, in smaller formats they were exchanged in marriage negotiations before the prospective spouses met, and they also were tokens of devotion between family and friends (13). The analysis of portraiture in La dama boba revolves around Finea's misunderstanding about the physical nature of her...