Hispanic Baroques: Reading Cultures in Context

Chapter 2. Aesthetic Categories as Empire Administration Imperatives: The Case of the Baroque

20  2 Aesthetic Categories as Empire Administration Imperatives: The Case of the Baroque Hernán Vidal The attempt here is to identify the term “Baroque” as a category emerging from the bureaucratic imperatives of empire administration. The issue raised is that there is abundant evidence in the historical literature to show the arbitrariness with which labels such as “Mannerism,” “Baroque” are affixed to the logic of a certain historical period. For instance, the socio-political trends in Spain and the rest of Western Europe during the last decades of the sixteenth century until the middle to late seventeenth century are associated with the term “Baroque.” Yet the factors generating and maintaining these trends are traced back to the fourteenth century in Italy at the dawn of modern capitalism. Descriptions of the material conditions of production and formal features of the art produced in Italy during the fourteenth century coincide in most respects to those of the “Baroque,” as much as the description of “Mannerism” associated with the 1530s–1570s coincides with that of the “Baroque.” Similar arbitrariness can be found in the way the term “colonial Baroque” has been recycled in Latin America as of the 1950s. The label “Baroque” is open to the suspicion of being a forced correlation between an aesthetic category elaborated in totally formalistic terms and narratives prepared as reconstruction of the socio-political logic of a historical period. No wonder J.H. Elliott’s irony: AESTHETIC CATEGORIES AS EMPIRE ADMINISTRATION 21 For some, baroque has been the art of the Counter-Reformation Church and of an absolute monarchy, an art expressive of power and triumph. For others (a diminishing band in recent years), it has been the art of an expanding and creative seventeenth -century Europe, an art of exuberance. For still others, it has been the art of a society in crisis, an art of anxiety and tension. All of these ‘explanations’ have had their critics, and none has proved very persuasive. This is scarcely a cause for surprise. It is hard enough to find common denominators in the infinitely complex and varied Europe of the seventeenth century, and harder still to make convincing connections between the aesthetic and literary sensibility of an age and its political and social organization. The fact is, though, that the Baroque has become an established issue in the academic industry, and students must be introduced and guided into and through a labyrinth of canonized literary texts, scholarly commentaries, and a daunting number of social science studies. We have no other choice but to keep on trying “harder still to make convincing connections between the aesthetic and literary sensibility of an age and its political and social organization.” My intention is to attempt such introduction and guidance in the smoothest, simplest manner possible, avoiding an overload of scholarly apparatus. For this purpose I have chosen the entry points into the issue provided by a very small number of historical works summarizing the vast literature related to the “military revolution” initiated in the fifteenth century. The military revolution was the background for the expansion of modern capitalism, the rise of the modern state, and modern empires. I have particularly resorted to works by Torbjørn L. Knutsen and Geoffrey Parker.1 Their approach has been used to rearticulate the theses on the “Baroque” provided by such “classic” authors as Arnold Hauser and José Antonio Maravall. Organizing the material according to contemporary notions of empirebuilding and administration provides an opportunity to use present-day geopolitical concepts such as grand strategy, national objectives, national security , psychological operations, labor force management, population and territorial mass domination, and population control in “strategic villages.” This retro-application of military terms is justified by the fact that contemporary notions of empire administration are an abstract refinement of past imperial experiences. All in all, my approach can be construed only as a pedagogical device to allow students of literature to deal in a quick, orderly manner with the confusing relationship between aesthetic concepts and historical logic. Under no circumstance should this essay be understood as an exhaustive use of the existing 22 HERNÁN VIDAL scholarly literary and social sciences resources available. Given that I disclaim historical originality I feel justified in quoting extensively to provide pertinent information. Perhaps the saving grace of my arguments is the implied attempt to extirpate Hispanic Baroque studies from a reductive, formalistic approach and...