et quod prudenti uitam consilio monet<\/em><\/p>\n De manera que ser\u00e1n presentadas cumpliendo a la perfecci\u00f3n la m\u00e1xima horaciana del utile dulci<\/em>, como testimonia el gram\u00e1tico y ret\u00f3rico latino Quintiliano (siglo I) y, ya en la Edad Media europea, muestra un Petrarca complacido al recordar sus primeras experiencias escolares.<\/p>\n Para F. Rodr\u00edguez Adrados, en las fabulas \u201cEl poderoso se impone, sean cualesquiera las razones del d\u00e9bil (…) Pero el d\u00e9bil puede ser superior en ingenio y triunfar con el enga\u00f1o o la astucia. Y hay cr\u00edtica y burla de la vanidad, la tonter\u00eda, la codicia\u201d. Seg\u00fan esta tesis, se comprende mejor por qu\u00e9 la f\u00e1bula despierta m\u00e1s o menos inter\u00e9s en determinadas \u00e9pocas hist\u00f3ricas y grupos como los c\u00ednicos en la Grecia cl\u00e1sica y, como veremos m\u00e1s adelante, los ilustrados y liberales espa\u00f1oles del XVIII y XIX. Sobre todo habida cuenta de que la f\u00e1bula, por sus caracter\u00edsticas tan espec\u00edficas, a pesar de ser utilizada para se\u00f1alar abreviadamente los vicios humanos y tambi\u00e9n como m\u00e9todo de primer adoctrinamiento escolar, no tiene necesariamente en el mundo infantil a su mejor p\u00fablico, puesto que en muchos casos ser\u00e1 v\u00eda de procacidad y cinismo y en consecuencia mucho m\u00e1s adecuada para un p\u00fablico adulto.<\/p>\n \u201cEn la Edad Media………fueron increment\u00e1ndose paulatinamente las colecciones de f\u00e1bulas es\u00f3picas.(…..) La literatura romance en la Pen\u00ednsula Ib\u00e9rica ofrece buen campo para este esp\u00edritu fabul\u00edstico, y as\u00ed puede apreciarse, por poner un solo ejemplo, en los varios ap\u00f3logos insertos en el Libro del buen amor<\/em> de Juan Ruiz\u201d.<\/p>\n Sin embargo, la f\u00e1bula como g\u00e9nero hab\u00eda sido despreciada, cuando no ninguneada, por los tratadistas literarios hasta bien entrado el siglo XVII. Pero conviene recordar que Vel\u00e1zquez hab\u00eda vivido en el barroco, un per\u00edodo en el que el arte es teatral y artificioso, en el que nada era lo que parec\u00eda<\/em>.<\/p>\n Seg\u00fan L\u00f3pez Rey \u201cEl empleo de f\u00e1bulas griegas a lo largo de la vida de Vel\u00e1zquez, hasta el final mismo de su vida, es tan reiterado que, fuera cual fuese la parte correspondiente al capricho del rey, no puede suponerse que estuviera animado fundamentalmente por un sentimiento de iron\u00eda y de cr\u00edtica destructora, como no pocas veces se ha afirmado\u201d.<\/p>\n Felipe IV hab\u00eda reunido en la Torre de la Parada a una serie de grandes artistas, de acuerdo en lo esencial con la creencia de que las gentes de talento no tienen nunca m\u00e1s talento que cuando est\u00e1n juntas. Y a tal fin, lo mismo que Rubens con sus Saturno, Vulcano y Gan\u00edmedes<\/em> adornaban alguna de las estancias, el pintor flamenco Paul de Vos \u2013cu\u00f1ado de Snyders- tambi\u00e9n hab\u00eda participado en la decoraci\u00f3n de la Torre ilustrando, precisamente, varias f\u00e1bulas de Esopo, y probando una vez m\u00e1s que la f\u00e1bula, como consejo o amonestaci\u00f3n, sirve tanto para la literatura como para cualquier otra actividad art\u00edstica.<\/p>\n Para J. Brown es igualmente posible que el Esopo<\/em> y Menipo<\/em> fueran la respuesta de Vel\u00e1zquez a otra pareja de lienzos de Rubens, Dem\u00f3crito <\/em>y Her\u00e1clito<\/em>, que colgaban en el mismo edificio. Porque en la literatura cl\u00e1sica, Esopo ocupaba un lugar tambi\u00e9n como cr\u00edtico de la vida apol\u00ednea o cultivada y no solamente como fabulador. Y en el contexto de la residencia de caza de los montes del Pardo, el retrato de Esopo<\/em> junto con el del c\u00ednico Menipo<\/em>, a su vez despreciador de la gravedad filos\u00f3fica y exaltador de la sabidur\u00eda del hombre corriente, ser\u00edan como los santos patrones de la vida sencilla.<\/p>\n En conclusi\u00f3n, Juli\u00e1n G\u00e1llego apunta que parece plausible que en un pabell\u00f3n de esparcimiento -por m\u00e1s que la caza fuera un arte regio que preparaba la guerra-, se admitiera una decoraci\u00f3n miscel\u00e1nea en la que la s\u00e1tira de la cultura antigua, tan evidente en el Siglo de Oro en la literatura como en la pintura, tuviera un lugar adecuado. Porque \u201csi Dem\u00f3crito, el que se r\u00ede de todo, y Her\u00e1clito, el que toma todo como causa de llanto, se prestan a menudo a la s\u00e1tira espa\u00f1ola, Esopo, que alecciona a los humanos por su semejanza con las bestias, o Menipo, en su c\u00ednica posici\u00f3n, tampoco estaban de m\u00e1s\u201d.<\/p>\n Los velazque\u00f1os Esopo<\/em> y Menipo<\/em> constituyen, por otra parte, caracter\u00edsticos tipos pict\u00f3ricos del siglo XVII en el que, como har\u00e1 Jos\u00e9 de Ribera con su Dem\u00f3crito<\/em>, emplean a venerables figuras de la Antig\u00fcedad vestidas con harapientas ropas del XVII, con objeto de encontrar una forma ingeniosa de compendiar sus temas e ideas esenciales.<\/p>\n Pero \u00e9l (el vendedor) no pod\u00eda vestirle ni adecentarle como es debido, pues era un tipo grueso y completamente deforme, as\u00ed que le visti\u00f3 con una t\u00fanica de arpillera, le at\u00f3 una tira de tela a la cintura y le coloc\u00f3 entre los dos bellos esclavos.<\/em><\/p>\n (De la leyenda biogr\u00e1fica de Esopo en la que se le pone a la venta con otros esclavos).<\/p>\n Finaliza J. Brown su ficha del retrato afirmando que nadie ha superado los resultados que obtuvo Vel\u00e1zquez cuando se acerc\u00f3 a \u00e9ste especial g\u00e9nero. Esopo, hombre de edad avanzada y rostro blando y cansado, lleva en una mano un estropeado libro e introduce la otra en la cintura del amplio pa\u00f1o que le sirve de poco favorecedor vestido. En la parte izquierda del lienzo aparece un cubo con un trozo de cuero que cuelga por fuera del recipiente, discreta referencia a la f\u00e1bula en que un hombre vecino de una curtidur\u00eda acaba aprendiendo a tolerar los nocivos olores del cuero.<\/p>\n Ante un asunto imaginario como el de este lienzo, el pincel de Vel\u00e1zquez remonta el vuelo y transmite una sensaci\u00f3n de s\u00f3lida estructura, pero lo hace mediante unos tenues y nebulosos efectos de luz, de una extraordinaria delicadeza. Los rasgos faciales est\u00e1n conseguidos a base de pinceladas sumamente ligeras, y luego las luces son fragmentos irregulares de empaste de blanco de plomo. En el cabello de Esopo pueden apreciarse breves pinceladas y motas de pintura que le dan ese aspecto de encrespado y tieso.<\/p>\n En definitiva, Vel\u00e1zquez no logra finalmente una obra de la imaginaci\u00f3n sobreexcitada, sino de la raz\u00f3n l\u00facida. Est\u00e1 hecha para durar por s\u00ed misma y sin ayuda, como tan genial y acertadamente sabr\u00e1 captar Francisco de Goya cuando, mucho tiempo despu\u00e9s, realice las primorosas reducciones de los cuadros de Vel\u00e1zquez que posee la Real Sociedad Econ\u00f3mica Aragonesa de Amigos del Pa\u00eds.<\/p>\n Continuar\u00e1\u2026<\/p>\n Gonzalo de Diego<\/p>\n The fable, short story in verse or in prose to illustrate a precept, is all a literary genre whose characteristics would be defined and profiled by the Greeks, people which, in the opinion of H. Taine, have thought that much, have its spirit so well done, that their guesses have been found many times with the truth. However the origin of the fable goes back to Mesopotamian fables arrived in Greece around 2,500 b.C. and later in India. Both routes, Greco-Roman and Indian, constitute traditions that will subsequently contact the middle ages through Arab translations.<\/p>\n While Aesop passes as the promoter of the first collection of fables, has not reached us nothing of him -even his existence is controversial- and we know his fables by subsequent collections. In any case Aesop, whom tradition attributes the condition of slave of Phrygian origin, is known author since long time ago and is the first model known and reported. (Juli\u00e1n G\u00e1llego says that) was first a slave, then freed and dead by the residents of Delphi. Herodotus places his life between 570-526 b.C. and Aristophanes quotes him as a usual reference in his comedies.<\/p>\n Fictitious and allegorical nature, the fable is a resource of speakers to achieve persuasion and not intend to both provide an unreal incident and not credible, usually in the animal world, as show it to us by what this event means in way of meditation about men\u2019s world. Sandwiched between genres as comedy, as opposed to the epic literature, for example, with the pass of time the fable, by its format and its easy, its high moralizing and persuasive value will serve the different philosophical schools -stoical, cynical- for the education of young people, due to its high moralizing and persuasive value. In any case, Aesop’s fables are characterized by brevity and simplicity and will be used, along with the Phaedrus ones, in education within a moral lay that essentially aims to emphasize vigilant attitude towards life.<\/p>\n Thus Phaedrus, in the 1st century, speaks of teaching to delight:<\/p>\n Duplex libelli dos est: quod risum mouet So that they will be presented to fulfilling perfectly the Horacian utile dulci<\/em> maxim, as testifies the Latin grammarian and rhetorician Quintiliano (1st<\/sup> century), and already in the European middle ages, shows a pleased Petrarca when remembering his early school experiences.<\/p>\n For F. Rodr\u00edguez Adrados, in fables “the mighty is imposed, are any of the reasons for the weak (…) But the weak may be superior in wit and succeed with deception or cunning. And there is criticism and mockery of vanity, stupidity, greed.” According to this thesis, is best understood why fable awakens more or less interest in certain historical periods and groups such as the cynics in the classical Greece, and, as we will see ahead, the enlightened and liberal Spanish of the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries. Especially taking into account that the fable, for its specific characteristics, in spite of being used to designate shortly human vices and also as a method of first school indoctrination, does not necessarily have in children its best public, because in many cases will be via of profanity and cynicism and consequently much more suitable for an adult audience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vel\u00e1zquez and Aesop<\/strong><\/p>\n “In the middle ages… collections of aesopic<\/em> fables (\u2026) were increasing gradually. Romance literature in the Iberian peninsula offers good field for this fabulous spirit, and thus can be seen, to give just an example, at the multiple apologies inserts in the book of the Good Humour by Juan Ruiz”<\/p>\n However, the fable as a genre had been despised, when not ignored, by literary scholars until deep into the 17th<\/sup> century. But it is worth remembering that Vel\u00e1zquez had lived in the Baroque, a period in which the art is theatrical and artificial, in which nothing was what it seemed.<\/p>\n According to L\u00f3pez Rey “the use of Greek fables along the life of Vel\u00e1zquez, until the very end of his life, is so repeated that, whatever the part corresponding to the whim of the King was, cannot be supposed was animated primarily by a sense of irony and critical shredder, as not few times has been claimed”.<\/p>\n Felipe IV had gathered at the Torre de la Parada<\/em> a series of great artists, agree in essence with the belief that the people of talent have never more talent than when they are together. And for this purpose, as well as Rubens with his Saturn, Vulcan, and Ganymede adorned some of the rooms, the Flemish painter Paul de Vos -brother-in-law of Snyders- also had participated in the decoration of the Torre, precisely illustrating several fables of Aesop, and proving once more that the fable, as advice or admonishment, serves both for literature and for any other artistic activity.<\/p>\n For J. Brown, it is equally possible that the Aesop and Menippus were Vel\u00e1zquez response to another couple of paintings by Rubens, Democritus and Heraclitus, hanging in the same building. Because in classical literature, Aesop was a place also as a critic of the Apollonian or cultivated life and not only as a storyteller. And in the context of the hunting residence at montes del Pardo, the portrait of Aesop along with the one of the cynic Menippus, at the same time exalting the wisdom and crackle of philosophical gravity of the common man, they would be as the patron saints of the simple life.<\/p>\n In conclusion, Juli\u00e1n G\u00e1llego says that seems plausible that in a leisure Pavilion \u2013as much as hunting was a royal art prepared for the war-, was admitted a miscellaneous decoration in which satire of ancient culture, so evident in the Golden Century in literature as in painting, had a right place. Because “If Democritus, who laughs at everything, and Heraclitus, which takes everything as a cause of crying, is often provided to the Spanish satire, Aesop, who instructs humans because of their similarity with beasts, or Menippus, in his cynical position, that worth the effort”.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong>Aesop\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Diego Vel\u00e1zquez, 1639 – 1640 Oil on canvas 179 x 94 cm. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain<\/h6>\n The Vel\u00e1zquez Menippus and Aesop constitute, on the other hand, characteristic pictorial types of 17th<\/sup> century in which, as Jos\u00e9 de Ribera will do with his Democritus, employ venerable figures of Antiquity dressed in tattered clothes of the 17th<\/sup>, in order to find a clever way to summarize their themes and essential ideas.<\/p>\n But he (the seller) could not dress him nor present him as required, because was a kind of corpulent and completely deformed guy, so she dressed him in a burlap robe, tied a strip of fabric at the waist and placed him between two beautiful slaves<\/em><\/p>\n (From the biographical legend of Aesop where is putted on sale with other slaves).<\/p>\n A cube with a piece of leather that hangs on the outside of the container appears on the left side of the canvas, discreet reference to the fable in which a man neighbour of a tannery just finish learning to tolerate noxious odours from leather.<\/p>\n In front of an imaginary affair as the one of this canvas, the brush of Vel\u00e1zquez back flies and conveys a sense of solid structure, but does so by dim and hazy effects of light, with an extraordinary delicacy. Facial features are achieved with very light strokes, and then the lights are irregular fragments of filling of white lead. In Aesop hair can be seen short brush strokes and paint specks that give this aspect of curled and stiff.<\/p>\n In conclusion, Vel\u00e1zquez fails finally a work of the overexcited imagination, but the lucid reason. Is built to last by itself and without help, as so cool and rightly know to capture Francisco de Goya when, long after, make wonderful cuts of the paintings of Vel\u00e1zquez owned by the Royal Aragonese Economic Society of Friends of the Country.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To be continued\u2026.<\/p>\n Gonzalo de Diego<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" La f\u00e1bula, peque\u00f1o relato en verso o en prosa destinado a ilustrar un precepto, constituye todo un g\u00e9nero literario cuyas caracter\u00edsticas ser\u00edan definidas y perfiladas por los griegos, un pueblo que, en opini\u00f3n de H. Taine, ha pensado tanto, tiene su esp\u00edritu tan bien hecho, que sus conjeturas se han encontrado muchas veces con la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,6,11],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-fabula","tag-goya","tag-velazquez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vel\u00e1zquez y Esopo<\/h2>\n
![\"Menipo](\"https:\/\/realgoya.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/menipo-y-esopo.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMenipo <\/em><\/strong>Diego Vel\u00e1zquez, 1639 \u2013 1640 Oleo sobre lienzo 179 x 94 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Espa\u00f1a Esopo\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Diego Vel\u00e1zquez, 1639 – 1640\u00a0Oleo sobre lienzo\u00a0179 x 94 cm.\u00a0Museo del Prado, Madrid, Espa\u00f1a<\/h6>\n
\n<\/em>et quod prudenti uitam consilio monet<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\nMenipous\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Diego Vel\u00e1zquez, 1639 \u2013 1640 Oil on canvas 179 x 94 cm.\u00a0Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain<\/p>\n
\n