Sisterly love and sibling rivalry: The poetic response to painting in Spain's Golden Age

Poetry and painting have long been described as sister arts. Since Antiquity the belief that these two arts share a closer connection than all other arts has remained steadfast. The number of treatises on the subject is vast and varied, yet few studies have focused specifically on the relationship between painting and poetry of the Spanish Golden Age. This dissertation explores the interaction between the sister arts in Spain at that time, which produced a large corpus of poetry dedicated specifically to painting. My study analyzes poetry written in response to both narrative painting and portraiture in the Spanish Golden Age.;In the first Chapter, I examine the cultural climate that allowed and encouraged the sharing of ideas between poet and painter. I also address the paragone, or rivalry between the arts, as interactions between painting and poetry were not always of a positive nature, but were critical and denunciatory. Thus poetry that reflects upon art allows the modern reader to understand how it was perceived during the Golden Age, informs about which artists were lauded and admired, as well as which artists were censured, and why. In addition, various poems allude to the close friendships between poet and painter.;Subsequent chapters analyze those poems composed in response to specific paintings. Such poems reveal which art works were familiar to the poet, which drew the poet's attention, and which artists the poet admired or scorned. Contemplation of the images on the part of the poets tends to produce wither satisfaction or disgust.;This dissertation sheds light on a long-neglected body of work, which represents the poet's views on art and artists. Each poem, though initially a response to a specific painting, expands to express related concerns, be they political, religious, or personal in nature. By concentrating on these individual poems and the works of art to which they respond, we learn not only of the poet's own artistic sensibilities, but of the importance art played in the culture of Golden Age Spain as a whole and how poetry gave voice to a certain segment of that society.