Previous art historical scholarship has approached the portraits of court jesters painted for the Buen Retiro Palace by Diego Velazquez between the late 1620s and 1630s as fascinating character studies that provided the artist with the opportunity to display psychological nuances and to experiment with painterly techniques that were precluded in his formal portraits of the royal family and members of the court. In addition, they have been discussed as an interesting intermingling of Northern and Southern Italian traditions of jester and dwarf imagery. This thesis will show that Velazquez was also deliberately including sophisticated references to prevailing philosophical ideas concerning inverted realities, and that these paintings, as well as their placement, provide information about the function of the jester as an instrument of opposition and comparison for the monarch at the court of Philip IV.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/291615 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Hansen, Julie Vinsonhaler, 1961- |
| Contributors | Wood, Jeryldene |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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