Antonio Ponz
Encyclopedia
Antonio Ponz was a Spanish
painter.
He was born at Bejís
in the province of Valencia. He was a pupil of Antonio Richarte
at Valencia, then in 1746 moved to Madrid
, where he studied for five years. He then went to Rome
for a short time, but soon returned to help in repainting and compilation of the artworks at El Escorial
. In 1771 he made a journey through Spain. In 1776 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. He was a member of many of the art academies in the Peninsula. He wrote Comentarios de la Pintura and several other works.
, University of Valencia, Gandia
and the School of the Three Arts in Madrid. He lived in Italy between 1751 and 1760, where he expanded his knowledge of art. There he met Pedro Francisco Jiménez de Góngora y Luján, Duke of Almodovar, who would become Director of the the Spanish Royal Academy of History (1792-1794) and formed a friendship with Anton Raphael Mengs
. He studied classical art under Johann Joachim Winckelmann
and history with Francisco Pérez Bayer
. He settled in Rome
and visited Naples
in 1759 to view the newly discovered ruins of Pompeii
and Herculaneum
.
In 1773 he was elected scholar of history and in 1776 Secretary of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
was also a fellow of the Royal Basque
Economic Society and the Economic society of Madrid
, among other distinctions.
Antonio Ponz was a key figure in Bourbon
cultural policy and worked on the collection of works and relics of the Library of El Escorial
, and was curator of the portrait gallery for which he made copies of some works by Italian masters.
Ponz made a famous trip around Spain to inspect the artistic treasures of Andalucia that had belonged to the Jesuits, recently expelled from Spain by Carlos III (1767).
Subsequently Ponz published his famous Voyage around Spain (Viage de España), a collection of letters in which there is news of the most significant events worthy of knowing. The work began in 1772 and was printed in the workshop of Joaquín Ibarra, although as a precaution, the author published the first two under an assumed name. According to his nephew Joseph Ponz this was, at the request of the Eugenio de Llaguno Duke of Almodóvar and Francisco Pérez Bayer
among others. An eighteenth volume was printed posthumously in 1794 which referred to Cadiz
, Malaga
and other towns in Andalucia.
This work was not just an inventory of monuments and a documentary report on the conservation of artistic, epigraphic, and pictorial heritage, but also covered sculpture and architecture and other fixed works of significance that he saw in the course of his voyage. His description of them is strongly influenced by the Renaissance
and Neoclassical
movements and offer a much broader vision than other writers on many aspects of social reality in the country at the time, albeit with less detail than Eugenio Larruga.
From some of the early volumes published it is easy to see he did not like the situation in the country, because it was thinly inhabited and little or poorly exploited. He noted that domestic markets were poorly served and sensed a certain crisis in artistic creation in relation to other, more enlightened times. This was during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, and Ponz d3eplored the excesses of the Baroque
style. In recognition of his work King Carlos III granted him the ecclesiastical revenues of the Stipend
of Cuervo
from the Archbishop of Toledo, and used his influence to have him appointed as the Secretary of the Academy of San Fernando (1776).
In 1785 Ponz published Voyage beyond Spain (Viaje fuera de España) which documented the tour he took around Europe in 1783 with the dual purpose of defending Spain from adverse travel reviews and contributing external philosophical ideas to the economic, social and artistic evolution within Spain. It is a journey representing the aspirations and tensions of enlightened reformers. Under the critical spotlight he was to flourish in the light and shadow of the French Revolution. He also sampled the economic and social dynamism and political freedom of Britain, the intellectual and religious tolerance in the United Provinces and the bitter memories of the Spanish occupation of The Netherlands. Although his work is concerned primarily with artistic description, it also includes reflections on the economy, as well as the social and religious life abroad, and, more darkly, the foreign policiees in the territories visited.
Assigned to moderate reformism and no supporter of breaks, our author advocates the involvement of the nobility, through economic development and the patronage
, in the progress of the country, while avoiding reference to sociability and everyday life. In art, he goes in the name of "good taste" neoclassical some selected readers, while perceived growing importance of the public and the market in the world of art. In the religious and political freedoms horrified rejects English and Dutch, without actually sense the impending revolutionary storm in France. Who liked to call himself a "modernario" embodies well compared to other international travelers as Gaspar de Molina and Saldivar, better known as Marquis of Ureña, or Leandro Fernandez de Moratín
, face a more disciplined Illustration
contained and respectful of the Church, the monarchy and order estates.
The two works have been reissued together in the twentieth century in two editions of the 20 volumes: the first in "Ponz, Antonio:Tour of Spain, followed by two volumes of traveling outside of Spain. Preparation, introduction and additional indices by Casto Maria del Rivero, Madrid, Editorial Aguilar, 1947 reprinted in 1988 and the second, a facsimile edition of 20 volumes published in Madrid by the publisher Atlas, in 1973, which reproduces the latest edition of the eighteenth century edition without comment or annotation.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
painter.
He was born at Bejís
Bejís
Bejís is a municipality in the comarca of Alto Palancia, province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain....
in the province of Valencia. He was a pupil of Antonio Richarte
Antonio Richarte
Antonio Richarte was a Spanish painter.He was a born at Yecla. He was educated for a learned profession, but he preferred painting, which he studied under Señen Vila at Murcia, and afterwards at Madrid with one of the Menendez. He was very popular at Valencia, where he was much employed in...
at Valencia, then in 1746 moved to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, where he studied for five years. He then went to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
for a short time, but soon returned to help in repainting and compilation of the artworks at El Escorial
El Escorial
The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a historical residence of the king of Spain, in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 kilometres northwest of the capital, Madrid, in Spain. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and...
. In 1771 he made a journey through Spain. In 1776 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. He was a member of many of the art academies in the Peninsula. He wrote Comentarios de la Pintura and several other works.
Biography
Ponz received a comprehensive education in the humanities, arts and theology at SegorbeSegorbe
Segorbe is a municipality in the mountainous coastal province of Castelló, autonomous community of Valencia, Spain. The former Palace of the Dukes of Medinaceli now houses the city's mayor...
, University of Valencia, Gandia
Gandia
Gandia is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Eastern Spain on the Mediterranean. Gandia is located on the Costa del Azahar, 65 km south of Valencia and 96 km north of Alicante....
and the School of the Three Arts in Madrid. He lived in Italy between 1751 and 1760, where he expanded his knowledge of art. There he met Pedro Francisco Jiménez de Góngora y Luján, Duke of Almodovar, who would become Director of the the Spanish Royal Academy of History (1792-1794) and formed a friendship with Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs was a German painter, active in Rome, Madrid and Saxony, who became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting.- Biography :Mengs was born in 1728 at Ústí nad Labem in Bohemia...
. He studied classical art under Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art...
and history with Francisco Pérez Bayer
Francisco Pérez Bayer
Francisco Pérez Bayer was a Spanish philologist, jurist and writer....
. He settled in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and visited Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1759 to view the newly discovered ruins of Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
and Herculaneum
Herculaneum
Herculaneum was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in AD 79, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano, in the Italian region of Campania in the shadow of Mt...
.
In 1773 he was elected scholar of history and in 1776 Secretary of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery....
was also a fellow of the Royal Basque
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
Economic Society and the Economic society of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, among other distinctions.
Antonio Ponz was a key figure in Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
cultural policy and worked on the collection of works and relics of the Library of El Escorial
El Escorial
The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a historical residence of the king of Spain, in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 kilometres northwest of the capital, Madrid, in Spain. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and...
, and was curator of the portrait gallery for which he made copies of some works by Italian masters.
Viage de Espana (Journey around Spain)
Commissioned by Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de CampomanesPedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes
Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes , Spanish statesman and writer, was born at Santa Eulalia de Sorribia, in Asturias....
Ponz made a famous trip around Spain to inspect the artistic treasures of Andalucia that had belonged to the Jesuits, recently expelled from Spain by Carlos III (1767).
Subsequently Ponz published his famous Voyage around Spain (Viage de España), a collection of letters in which there is news of the most significant events worthy of knowing. The work began in 1772 and was printed in the workshop of Joaquín Ibarra, although as a precaution, the author published the first two under an assumed name. According to his nephew Joseph Ponz this was, at the request of the Eugenio de Llaguno Duke of Almodóvar and Francisco Pérez Bayer
Francisco Pérez Bayer
Francisco Pérez Bayer was a Spanish philologist, jurist and writer....
among others. An eighteenth volume was printed posthumously in 1794 which referred to Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
, Malaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
and other towns in Andalucia.
This work was not just an inventory of monuments and a documentary report on the conservation of artistic, epigraphic, and pictorial heritage, but also covered sculpture and architecture and other fixed works of significance that he saw in the course of his voyage. His description of them is strongly influenced by the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
movements and offer a much broader vision than other writers on many aspects of social reality in the country at the time, albeit with less detail than Eugenio Larruga.
From some of the early volumes published it is easy to see he did not like the situation in the country, because it was thinly inhabited and little or poorly exploited. He noted that domestic markets were poorly served and sensed a certain crisis in artistic creation in relation to other, more enlightened times. This was during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, and Ponz d3eplored the excesses of the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style. In recognition of his work King Carlos III granted him the ecclesiastical revenues of the Stipend
Stipend
A stipend is a form of salary, such as for an internship or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from a wage or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed, instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried...
of Cuervo
Mota del Cuervo
Mota del Cuervo is a municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 5,693....
from the Archbishop of Toledo, and used his influence to have him appointed as the Secretary of the Academy of San Fernando (1776).
In 1785 Ponz published Voyage beyond Spain (Viaje fuera de España) which documented the tour he took around Europe in 1783 with the dual purpose of defending Spain from adverse travel reviews and contributing external philosophical ideas to the economic, social and artistic evolution within Spain. It is a journey representing the aspirations and tensions of enlightened reformers. Under the critical spotlight he was to flourish in the light and shadow of the French Revolution. He also sampled the economic and social dynamism and political freedom of Britain, the intellectual and religious tolerance in the United Provinces and the bitter memories of the Spanish occupation of The Netherlands. Although his work is concerned primarily with artistic description, it also includes reflections on the economy, as well as the social and religious life abroad, and, more darkly, the foreign policiees in the territories visited.
Assigned to moderate reformism and no supporter of breaks, our author advocates the involvement of the nobility, through economic development and the patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
, in the progress of the country, while avoiding reference to sociability and everyday life. In art, he goes in the name of "good taste" neoclassical some selected readers, while perceived growing importance of the public and the market in the world of art. In the religious and political freedoms horrified rejects English and Dutch, without actually sense the impending revolutionary storm in France. Who liked to call himself a "modernario" embodies well compared to other international travelers as Gaspar de Molina and Saldivar, better known as Marquis of Ureña, or Leandro Fernandez de Moratín
Leandro Fernández de Moratín
Leandro Fernández de Moratín was a Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet.-Biography:Moratín was born in Madrid the son of Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, a major literary reformer in Spain from 1762 until his death in 1780.Distrusting the teaching offered in Spain's universities at...
, face a more disciplined Illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
contained and respectful of the Church, the monarchy and order estates.
Works
- Voyage around Spain, or letters in which there is news of the most significant and worthy of knowing Publishe by Ibarra, Madrid, 1772-1794, in 18 volumes "Octavo" format (About 107x157mm):
- Volume I: Madrid, Toledo, Aranjuez, Alcalá de Henares, Guadalajara, Huete.
- Volume II: Madrid, Escorial, Guisando.
- Volume III: Cuenca, Madrid, Arganda, Ucles, Huete, Requena, Valencia, Chelva.
- Volume IV: Valencia, Segorbe, Murviedro, Xativa, Almansa.
- Volume V: Madrid.
- Volume VI: Real Madrid and sites immediately.
- Volume VII: Madrid, Talavera de la Reina, Guadalupe, Talavera la Vieja, Plasencia Yuste, Trujillo, Medellín, Las Batuecas Hurdes, Plasencia.
- Volume VIII: Plasencia, Bejar, Coria, Oliva, Alcántara, Cáceres, Mérida, Montijo, Badajoz, Jerez de los Caballeros, Fregenal, Zafra, Cantillana, Santiponce, Triana.
- Volume IX: Sevilla.
- Volume X: Alcobendas, Torrelaguna, Buitrago, San Ildefonso, Segovia.
- Volume XI: Cuellar, Montemayor, Tudela, Valladolid, Palencia, Carrion de los Condes, Sahagún, León, Monsoon, Aguilar de Campo, Torquemada.
- Volume XII: Burgos, Lerma, Aranda de Duero, Ampudia, Medina de Rioseco, Tordesillas, Medina del Campo, Salamanca, Alba de Tormes, Avila, Ciudad Rodrigo.
- Volume XIII: Hita, Sigüenza, Medinaceli, Calatayud, Molina de Aragón, Teruel, Caudiel, Villareal, Castellón de la Plana, Torreblanca, Alcalá de Chisvert, Benicarló, Peñíscola, Ulldecona, Tortosa, Tarragona.
- Volume XIV: Barcelona, Mataro, Girona, Montserrat, Martorell, pregnant, Igualada, Solsona, Cervera, Lleida.
- Volume XV: Zaragoza, Daroca.
- Volume XVI: Aranjuez, Ocaña, Valdepeñas, Consuegra, Ciudad Real, Almagro, Linares Baeza, Ubeda, Jaén, Arjona, Bailen, Córdoba.
- Volume XVII: Córdoba, Ecija, Lucena, Carmona, Seville, Utrera, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz.
- Volume XVIII: Cadiz, Chiclana, Puerto de Santa Maria, Medina Sidonia, Tarifa, Gibraltar, Ronda, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Lebrija, Osuna, Antequera, Malaga, Alhama.
- Travel outside of Spain,1785, 2 vols. (For the Netherlands, England, Holland, Belgium and France)
The two works have been reissued together in the twentieth century in two editions of the 20 volumes: the first in "Ponz, Antonio:Tour of Spain, followed by two volumes of traveling outside of Spain. Preparation, introduction and additional indices by Casto Maria del Rivero, Madrid, Editorial Aguilar, 1947 reprinted in 1988 and the second, a facsimile edition of 20 volumes published in Madrid by the publisher Atlas, in 1973, which reproduces the latest edition of the eighteenth century edition without comment or annotation.