Professor Jesusa Vega

Friday, 8 March 2013, 6.00-7.30pm, Room 541, Malet Street (Entrance via Torrington Place), Birkbeck, University of London

One of the main consequences of the uprising in Madrid on May 2nd, 1808 was that the image of Spain had to be changed at least among English people: Spanish subjects decided to stop Napoleon’s idea of invading Spain. Until that day, Spain and Spaniards were represented as ‘Don Diego’, a dull character, lazy and fanatic, dressed in an old fashion costume. This iconography, based on the figure of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, was revitalized with the image of Manuel Godoy, the Prime Minister and favourite of Charles IV and his wife, María Luisa de Borbón. Godoy was satirized as an ambitious and aggressive man, ignorant and dominant. From that day in May the Spanish people became brave and heroic, and their image was changing in a positive way during the course of the war—that of the bull was the most accomplished. But the return of Ferdinand VII, whose image as a bloodthirsty donkey was also created by satirical English artists, made it impossible for the new image of the Spanish citizen to last. Nevertheless, those satirical prints were important sources for Spanish artists, Goya among them, and were in part the basis of the romantic vision of Spain that was spread throughout Europe during the 19th century.

Jesusa Vega is Professor Accredited of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University Autonoma, Madrid, and Honorary Research Fellow in the Birkbeck School of Arts (ILAS Department, 2013). She holds a PhD in Art History at the Universidade Complutense of Madrid (1987). After her doctorate, she continued her research at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (USA) and the Warburg Institute, University of London. She was a Fellow of the Art History & Theory Department, University of Essex (1993-2002) and Visiting Fellow at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, USA (2010). From 2006 to 2009 she was Director of the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation in Madrid and Coordinator of the research group on ‘Contemporary Visual Culture’. Her recent publications include: Ciencia, arte e ilusión en la España Ilustrada (Madrid: CSIC-Polifemo, 2010), and Construir la identidad. Vestir la apariencia. La cuestión del traje en la España del siglo XVIII (with A. Molina, Madrid: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 2005). For more details visit https://sites.google.com/site/jesusavegaglz/home.