Silent Poetry: The Disputation on the Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratti, Revisited
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Stefano Colombo
Abstract
This paper re-examines the Disputation on the Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratti (1686) and its reception in hitherto understudied poems which were first published in 1686 and 1687. Although the poems are chiefly celebratory and refer to the tradition of encomiastic pictorial description, this essay demonstrates how they help us understand the beholder’s engagement with Baroque art. It first analyzes the poems as both encomiastic speech and ekphrastic poetry to explain how epideictic description persuasively moves readers to venerate the Virgin, thus rekindling the cult of the Immaculate Conception. Subsequently, a comparative reading of the poems and the painting demonstrates how art and literature mutually informed each other to create new aesthetic and intellectual values. A detailed comparison between visual and verbal languages will therefore offer a new interpretative framework to reassess the painting, the poems, and their public.
Photo Credits: 1–4 © 2022 Foto Scala, Firenze/Fondo Edifici di Culto – Ministero dell’Interno. — 5–7, 11, 12 Wikimedia Commons. ― 8 The Metropolitan Museum, Victor Wilbour Memorial Fund, New York. ― 9 The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (URL: https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digitalcollection/01.+paintings/31606 [last accessed February 2022]). ― 10 Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome (photo: Gabriele Fichera).
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Engagierte Kunstgeschichte
- When the “Constant Renewal of Frameworks” Might Not Suffice Anymore: Art History in Times of Fallism
- Aufsätze
- Silent Poetry: The Disputation on the Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratti, Revisited
- Jacob Burckhardt und die französische Interpretation der »Renaissance«: Wandlungen des Begriffs von den frühen Tessin-Studien bis zum Cicerone
- Anstelle einer rezension
- »Die mittelalterliche Architektur ist nun einmal durchaus international«: Anmerkungen zu Ingo Herklotz, Richard Krautheimer in Deutschland: Aus den Anfängen einer wissenschaftlichen Karriere 1925–1933
- Buchbesprechungen
- Raffael, von fern und nah
- Die Materialität der Dioramen
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Engagierte Kunstgeschichte
- When the “Constant Renewal of Frameworks” Might Not Suffice Anymore: Art History in Times of Fallism
- Aufsätze
- Silent Poetry: The Disputation on the Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratti, Revisited
- Jacob Burckhardt und die französische Interpretation der »Renaissance«: Wandlungen des Begriffs von den frühen Tessin-Studien bis zum Cicerone
- Anstelle einer rezension
- »Die mittelalterliche Architektur ist nun einmal durchaus international«: Anmerkungen zu Ingo Herklotz, Richard Krautheimer in Deutschland: Aus den Anfängen einer wissenschaftlichen Karriere 1925–1933
- Buchbesprechungen
- Raffael, von fern und nah
- Die Materialität der Dioramen