Art, Agency, And Authority in Calderon’s Darlo Todo Y No Dar Nada

Abstract

ART, AGENCY, AND AUTHORITY IN CALDERON'S DARLO TODO Y NO DAR NADA Calderon's enthusiasm for the art of painting is well documented. His own col? lection of 119 paintings and drawings, inventoried shortly after the dramatist's death in 1681 by the then pintor del Reyy Claudio Coello, attests eloquently to the keenness of his interest. Many of his plays allude repeatedly to the visual arts, while in works such as Darlo todo y no dar nada and El pintor de su deshonra, references to painting are invested with fundamental thematic significance. In 1677 the playwright lent his support, in the Deposicion enfavor de los profesores de lapintura, to the lawsuit brought by the latter in an attempt to seek exemption from the imposts to which their official status as artisans rendered them liable.1 This document therefore represents part of the long struggle to see painting recognized as a Liberal Art in Spain and thus ensure that its practitioners would be freed from the tax burdens borne by other pecheros. In it a scribe reports the playwright's words, referring to 'la natural inclinacion que siempre tuvo a la pintura'. The art of painting is described as 'un casi remedo de las Obras de Dios', a notion obviously calculated to help advance the document's claims, but one which had by this time already come to enjoy a certain currency in Spain. The same phrase had, for example, been used in the 1655 Juicio de Artes y Sciencias, a work published under the pseudonym of Claudio Antonio de Cabrera but almost certainly written by Diego de Saavedra Fajardo.2 And even earlier, in the widely read Discursos of 1626, Juan Butron had expressed a similar sentiment, citing Biblical and classical sources and observing that, 'Imitan pues los Pintores al Criador de todas las cosas, como en lo principal de la hermosa fabrica del hombre, en los juguetes con que se divierte\3 Certainly in Darlo todo y no dar naday the status of the celebrated painter of antiquity, Apelles, and in particular his creative value to Alexander the Great, are central to the play's concerns. At one point, early in the play, Alexander tells the painters Apelles, Zeuxis, and Timantes, 'ejerceis el mejor arte, | mas noble y de mas ingenio' (p. i027a).4 Echoing Italian Renaissance apologists, 1 The fulltitleis Deposicionhechapor donPedroCalderonde la Barca enfavorde losprofesores de la pinturaenelpleitoconel ProcuradorGeneralde estavilla deMadrid sobre pretender estese les hiciesserepartimiento de soldado.AntonioPalomino,referring to a pendinglawsuitof4 December 1676, notedin his Museo pictorico y escala optica(publ. 1715-24) that'pretendianel Procurador General de Madrid y los diputadosde rentas,que el artede la Pinturapagase cincuentaducados cada afio,de un soldado, que se le repartia,con el ejemplar de haber servido a Su Majestad voluntariamente, por una vez, con un montado,en caso de necesidad publica' (cited in F. Calvo Serraller,Teoriadela pinturadelSiglo de Oro (Madrid: Catedra, 1991), p. 537). 2 Calvo Serraller,Teoriade la pinturadel Siglo de Oro, p. 454. 3 Butron,Discursodecimoquarto,in Calvo Serraller, p. 211. 4 All references to Darlo todoy no dar nada are based on vol. 11of the 5thedn of the Obras completas (Madrid: Aguilar,1991), pp. 1022-67. Superscripta and b refer to the left-and righthand columns respectively in thisedn. The play was published in Madrid in 1657 m tne Parte Octava de Comediasnuevasde losmejores ingenios deEspaiia and, twenty yearslater,intheQuinta partede Comediasde donPedro Calderon.The titlepage oftheplay in theSeptimaparteof 1683 describesitas 'Fiesta quese represento a susmajestadesenel Salon de su Real Palacioy,thedate of thisperformance being 1651. The playwas performed, in Spanish, some timebetween1667 and 1673, at no less splendid a venue thanthecourtofthe EmperorLeopold in Vienna. And in the Codex Barberiniof the BibliotecaVaticana thereis an ltalian play datingfromthe second half RICHARD PYM 85 this statement unequivocally accords to painting a status superior to that of the other arts.5 Like the arguments used to secure recognition for it in Spain as a Liberal Art, it stresses not just the nobility of painting, but also the ideation associated with its execution and the intellectual ingenuity displayed by its practitioners. In theory, at least, the claim to nobility on these grounds is lent weighty...