![]() Zurbarán's “radical naturalism” testified to the persuasive power of both pictorial illusionism and the vestigia of Christ's body (199). ![]() Pereda turns next to the evidence of divine presence in Francisco de Zurbarán's depictions of Veronica's veil, examining the paintings in relation to relic images of Christ, such as copies of the holy shroud. Years later, Francisco Rizi and others created paintings for a chapel on the site of the alleged desecration, reproducing the Inquisitors’ evidence to establish proof of events that never transpired. Analyzing records from the trial, Pereda elucidates inquisitorial methods in manufacturing evidence. ![]() Moreover, he alluded to the deception inherent in painting itself, replacing Joseph's multicolored garment with a white cloth that resembles a painter's canvas.įalse testimony is also central to Pereda's account of the notorious execution in 1632 of five Portuguese conversos accused of destroying a crucifix. Velázquez gave the lie to the proof afforded by the cloak. Moving beyond previous scholarship, Pereda relates Velázquez's interest in fabricated evidence to skeptical philosophy as practiced in his native Seville. Pereda then considers Joseph's Bloody Coat, which depicts Jacob's sons feigning emotion while proffering Joseph's blood-stained garment. The sources Pereda brings to bear upon the painting are largely familiar to specialists, but he further argues that the portrait's obscure background and ambiguous perspective, far from being flaws in the composition, reinforce Jerónima's status as a living image of Christ. The artist's Jerónima de la Fuente is identified by its inscription as a “true portrait”: a faithful likeness and a “testimonial and historical record” of the saintly nun (108). Pereda next devotes two chapters to evidence as explored by Diego Velázquez. By declaring Christ's presence to the viewer, however, the deixis exemplified Pacheco's position that the function of religious images was persuasion and that likenesses of Christ merited the reverence due to Christ himself. The titulus, beginning “HIC EST” (in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic), was indeed an innovation with scant foundation in scripture. Some contemporaries denounced these features as unorthodox novelties. Pereda then investigates the debate sparked in 1619 when the Seville painter Francisco Pacheco portrayed Christ crucified with four nails (rather than three), adding an unusual inscription at the top of the cross. The introduction uses paintings of Christ at Emmaus and of the doubt-ridden Thomas to examine issues of sight, belief, and proof. Most of Pereda's nine chapters focus on images of Christ. He also adds an important voice to recent arguments challenging the paradigms that have distinguished the premodern era of images from an emerging, secular era of art. Pereda delves deeply into multiple domains of knowledge and practice, including legal discourse and procedures, Inquisition trials, Scholastic theology, artistic theory, rhetoric, semiotics, and the history of science. A central theme is the relationship between engaño (deceit) and desengaño (undeceit) and the question of whether proof of divine mysteries could be established by the experience of images or the senses. ![]() For Pereda, sacred art in seventeenth-century Spain was not an expression of faith, but rather a vehicle for countering doubt, transforming spectators into eyewitnesses to religious truth. This extraordinary book offers a new framework for understanding the powerful naturalism of early modern Spanish painting and sculpture.
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