Things change... for the better

Jonathan Brown said in the first issue of ARS that “the debate between experts was essential for progress in the History of Art”. The Hispanist lamented that the different opinions in Spain “often ended up in a controversial with a certain personal tone”. This happened a few years ago when it appeared in Paris a new table –The Immaculate that comes to our cover today–, attributed to Velazquez. Brown himself and Alfonso E. Sánchez Pérez remained in the media a confrontation that was reproduced in subsequent skirmishes: with the Santa Rufina and The maid with scarf, both of Velázquez.

If I remember those rumpus is because in the last two issues of the magazine (including the one you have in your hands) we have published two articles that deserve a reflection beyond its undeniable scientific interest. I refer to the article by Javier Portús about Saint John the Baptist in the desert from the Art Institute of Chicago and the one by Benito Navarrete about The Immaculate acquired by Focus Abengoa for the Velázquez Center in Seville.

Portús argued the reasons for his attribution to the master of Seville. And he did it with scientific rigor and modest dialectic. He did not impose: he proposed. Perhaps this way of putting that picture in another context –the years that Velázquez lived next to his arrival at the Court of Madrid–, and certainly the way to set it out had made Benito Navarrete accept his proposals in his article. Once more, Navarrete accepts Brown's thesis about the attribution of The Immaculate of Seville to Velázquez. And he does it in view of the new scientific data and observations arising from his study of the work. All this occurs without bitter controversies that leave wounds difficult to close. Just thinking, rectifying, admitting, studying ... Perhaps things are changing and the scientific discussions need to be tackled differently. Many 'colossus' would benefit. With regard to our magazine, we simply have to welcome that from these pages it has been successfully shed light and calm to one of the most exciting debates in the History of Spanish painting: the one that came with the early works of Velazquez in Seville and Madrid.

Let’s confirm something else: there is much to be said of Spanish art. Not even our Golden Age has been studied as it deserves. Professor Enrique Valdivieso added, also in this issue, new data on a work and a painter that were not even in our books: Francisco Palacios. Fortunately they will not be the only surprises that derive from ARS. There are some articles in progress that will start people talking