The Poet c. 1620 - 1621

Jusepe de Ribera made this etching, "The Poet", in Naples in the 1620s. Look at the figure: slumped against a stone, crowned with laurel, and lost in thought. Ribera makes the act of creation appear burdensome. In seventeenth-century Italy, the figure of the poet carried heavy cultural baggage. The academies of art, for example, debated the precise relationship of poetry to painting. Should painting simply illustrate the texts of the great poets? Or was it a form of poetry in itself, possessed of its own independent imaginative power? Ribera worked in a tumultuous Naples ruled by a Spanish elite. Perhaps this print can be read as a comment on the role of the artist within a colonial state. What is the status of cultural production under conditions of foreign rule? Art history helps us to explore these questions. By looking at the institutions that shape artistic practice, and the social conditions that influence artists, we can better understand the place of art in our world.