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Spain  Engraving  Ralph Dekoninck I magines volant (“images fly”) might well be the very nature of engraving, given its ability to cross borders and oceans, as the German term Flugblatt and the English term “flyer” express very well. Engraving is the poor relation of art history studies, which have mainly been interested in its artistic dimension , but it now appears to be one of the most fascinating vantage points not only for the circulation of styles and themes but more widely for the emergence and diffusion of visual cultures on a global scale. The classic question of influence must be seen differently from this new perspective of engraving as an essential medium of mediation between Europe and Spanish America; the aim now is to go beyond the classical art historical assumption ofa singular meaning connecting prototype and copy, which presupposes a certain passivity on the part of the receiver and the exercise of a certain powerofdomination on the part of the issuer.This conception, largely derived from the idea of an engraved image as a propaganda tool in the hands of a conquering power imposing its models, has missed the mark. In recent years attention has focused instead on issues linked to the various forms of visual interbreeding or hybridization of images to explain the high degree of inventiveness that characterizes the assimilation and transformation of European models in the New World, not to mention the return of this imagery to Europe, exercising in its turn a certain fascination as a visual idiom that is familiar and foreign at the same time. The image more or less distantly inspired by the original European visual sources may be the fruit of a subtle play of borrowings that work at the level of both theme and composition or even motifs, which can be recombined according to a grammarand syntax whose workings and cultural issues are yet to be understood.1 While the system of successive copies that engraving lends itself to sometimes makes one forget the initial source, this source nevertheless matters. It is the carrier of a certain visual language of which the successive transpositions and adaptations always preserve a trace, however deformed . It is only right, then, to examine the way in which a new visual and mental universe was created in steeping itself in the various influences that were foreign to it. To this end, it is necessary to reconstitute all the networks of diffusion and to identify clearly all the stages (commercial, artistic, religious) that contributed to thedevelopment and distribution of engraved imagery. It is worthwhile asking if Spain played an important role in this transfer of images. First, we have to note that Spain mostly imported engravings from abroad: its own production was very limited and certainly not comparable to the other main European centers of print production. Second, among the few engravers and editors of prints working in Spain, and especially in Madrid (the principal center of the print trade), a large number came from other countries (Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands). From the perspective of the import of images, it is clear that Antwerp played a decisive role. It is no exaggeration to say that the visual culture emanating from the original engraved production of this city has left a profound mark on the visual culture of the Spanish Empire, to which it belonged. Antwerp was prominent at the end of the sixteenth century not only as a bastion of the Catholic faith but also as the main European center for the production of engraved images. This was due to the contributions of a series of families of engravers (Wierix, Galle, Collaert, and Bolswert, who worked after the designs of well-­ known Flemish artists such as Maarten de Vos, Hendrik Goltzius, Bartholomeus Spranger, and Johannes Stradanus) and printers, beginning with Christophe Plantin. The latter obtained the monopoly on the production of liturgical books for the Spanish Empire, works which were often accompanied by a rich iconography that was to have very widespread distribution.To give another symptomatic example, it was also through Plantin’s offices that negotiations were opened with the Society of Jesus for the publication of the Evangelicae historiae imagines, a prestigious volume with 153 engraved plates, illustrating the various episodes in the life of Christ (Fig. 45). This volume was published after Plantin’s death by the Jesuits of Antwerp themselves, however , using the finest city engravers of the time (theWierix, the Collaert, and Charles de Mallery). Accompanied or not by...

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