Copying and its uses in late Gothic painting (Open access in Clavis)
La copia y sus usos en la pintura tardogótica. Tiempo, memoria e identidad (Copying and its uses in late Gothic painting) can be freely accessed (with articles in Spanish and English) through Clavis, the open-access content portal of Ediciones en La Ergástula. This monograph presents a multifaceted approach to the phenomenon of copying in the medieval period. Moving beyond the supposed dichotomy between the concepts of originality and copy, it highlights the multifaceted nature of this artistic phenomenon: an element of learning, a resource for emulating famous works and artists, a tool for creating prototypes, and a way to promote the most outstanding pieces in a collection.
This publication is the result of our interest in the phenomenon of copying in the late Middle Ages, which attempts to explain, from a multifaceted and interdisciplinary perspective, the reasons for its use, evolution, and social, historical, and economic significance. The genesis and initial approach of the book owe a debt, among other inspirations, to Marcel Proust's emblematic text In Search of Lost Time, with its continuous references to the medieval imagination and the evocative power of memory.
One of his best-known fragments concerns the description of the church of Combray (France) as a four-dimensional space, incorporating a fourth dimension—the temporality of the god Cronus—into the canonical measurements of length, width, and height. This includes synchronic time, inherent to the building itself, and diachronic time, corresponding to the passage of centuries and the various individuals who have inhabited it and had different perceptions of it.
From this perspective, we felt it appropriate to dedicate our research to the topic of copying, examining how time (or times) has shaped a heterogeneous approach to and evaluation of this artistic phenomenon, from the current historiographical revitalization to the pejorative image coined in modern times due to its supposed opposition to the concept of originality, and including the multiple uses and functions adopted during the medieval period. This is the common thread running through the nine essays written by different specialists, which structure an index organized into two thematic sections dedicated to the copy and copies, in the broadest sense, and with a conceptual nod to the title of the research project that sponsors this publication—Court and Courts in Late Gothic Hispano—and to Erwin Panofsky's important work, Renaissance and Renaissances in Western Art, which defines the distinction between the different modes of copying, considering their uses, location, objectives, or patrons. The articles in the second section focus on the relationship between the use and evolution of copies and their process of creation, reproduction, interpretation, or commercialisation.
Texts and images © Cortes Tardogóticas /Authors