Of Sunflowers and Shot Silk
Mutability and Meaning in Early Seventeenth-Century Madrid
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10413624 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brendan C McMahon (0000-0003-2061-2197, University of Michigan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 421-464 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Renaissance Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-4338 • E-ISSN: 1935-0236 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1017/rqx.2025.55 |
| OpenAlex | W4412819070 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
A 1627 painting by the Spanish artist Juan Van der Hamen y León (1596–1631), known today as “Offering to Flora,” contains an overlooked visual joke. In its foreground, a depiction of a heliotropic sunflower appears in close proximity to a representation of iridescent shot fabric. Both were known in the period as tornasol, and both were associated variously with constancy and change. This article argues that by juxtaposing these homonyms, Van der Hamen’s painting prompted aristocratic viewers in Madrid to contemplate contradictory behavioral strategies for securing favor at court that were forged by debates about the values of mutability itself
Ancient history · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Meaning (existential · Shot (pellet · SILK · Chemistry · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Engineering · Historical Art and Architecture Studies · History · Philosophy
The Stoic garden
Neostoicism, value judgement and moral perception
Public and private, divine and temporal in Justus Lipsius' De Constantia and Politica
Painting and Poetry in Early Modern Spain
Fictions of Abundance in Early Modern Madrid
The Feminine Mistake
Shakespeare and the Constant Romans
Notes on Two Interrelated Plays of Tirso
The Cult of Lipsius
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |