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Abstract
Ten drawings that Lorca produced in New York or shortly thereafter feature animales fabulosos. This article proposes that he found inspiration not only in the illuminations of the Beato de Liébana manuscript held at El Escorial but also in two others recently acquired by the Morgan Library. Furthermore, the exploration of other medieval images depicting leashed wild animals, alongside the elucidation of certain elements of circus culture observable at Coney Island—the sideshow strongman—lead to a significant reinterpretation of the relationship between figure and beast in one of those ten works, namely the Escena de domador con animal fabuloso.
Notes
1 See, for example, Federico García Lorca, Libro de los dibujos de Federico García Lorca, ed. Mario Hernández (Madrid: Tabapress/Fundación Federico García Lorca, 1990), No. 356. All references to Lorca’s drawings will henceforth be via the numbering established by Hernández in this 1990 edition. Please note that this differs from the numbering found in his earlier 1986 work, Federico García Lorca, Dibujos, ed. Mario Hernández (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura/Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, 1986).
2 Drawings Nos 96–140 are all dated to 1927 (García Lorca, Libro de los dibujos de Federico García Lorca, ed. Hernández). For the relationship between Lorca and Gasch, see Andrew A. Anderson, ‘Federico García Lorca y Sebastià Gasch: escenas de una amistad epistolar’, Boletín de la Fundación Federico García Lorca, XII:23 (1998), 83–106.
3 Mario Hernández coined the term in his essay, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos con animal fabuloso y análisis de dos dibujos neoyorquinos’, in García Lorca, Dibujos, ed. Hernández, 85–115.
4 Luis Caparrós Esperante, ‘Autorretrato en Nueva York: lectura de un dibujo de Federico García Lorca’, Castilla. Estudios de Literatura, 12 (2021), 291–323 (p. 296); available online at <https://doi.org/10.24197/cel.12.2021.291-323> (accessed 21 March 2023).
5 Caparrós Esperante, ‘Autorretrato en Nueva York’, 296.
6 all present details of the complete drawing, isolating in each case the image of the animal. Where more than one creature appears in a single drawing, I have used the number reference plus the suffix a, b, etc. to differentiate between them.
7 See Hernández’s remarks on what he calls the ‘polimorfismo’ of the creature (‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 89).
8 Helen Oppenheimer describes the creatures as ‘oppressed’, ‘small and lost’, and states that ‘it is not clear whether the animals are comforting or menacing’ and that they ‘seem both to comfort and taunt him’ (see her Lorca, the Drawings. Their Relation to the Poet’s Life and Work [London: The Herbert Press, 1986], 87–89). Cecelia J. Cavanaugh sees a progression in their depiction that signals a ‘process of domination of the inner/outer forces that threatened to overwhelm him personally and artistically’ (see her Lorca’s Drawings and Poems. Forming the Eye of the Reader [Lewisburg: Bucknell U. P., 1995], 139–40). Other critics tend to perceive them as generally rather more menacing, see for instance Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 100 & 106.
9 As Caparrós Esperante writes of the contemporaneous Poeta en Nueva York, the poetry ‘escenifica la lidia con sus demonios personales en el espacio apocalíptico de la metrópolis deshumanizada’ (‘Autorretrato en Nueva York’, 309–10).
10 Hernández, ‘Ronde de los autorretratos’, 85.
11 Pedro Salinas, ‘Sobre los ángeles’, La Gaceta Literaria, III:49, 1 January 1929, p. 2.
12 Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 92.
13 Federico García Lorca, Alocución al pueblo de Fuente Vaqueros, transcripción de Manuel Fernández Montesinos & Andrés Soria Olmedo, estudio preliminar de Andrés Soria Olmedo (Granada: Diputación Provincial de Granada, 1996), 46–48.
14 The Granada codex was illuminated by Martinus Opifex in Southern Germany towards the middle of the fifteenth century.
15 For a general overview of the collection, see Aurora Cano Ledesma, ‘Los manuscritos árabes de El Escorial, su organización y estudio’, in De Maŷrit a Madrid: Madrid y los árabes, del siglo IX al siglo XXI, ed. Daniel Gil-Benumeya (Madrid: Casa Árabe/Lunwerg, 2011), 162–73. There are some two thousand Arabic manuscripts held in the library there.
16 See Ibn al-Durayhim al-Mawsili, Libro de las utilidades de los animales, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Ms. Árabe 898; available online at <https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/s/rbme/item/15110#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2449%2C-208%2C7392%2C4159> (accessed 4 March 2023).
17 See Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli, Consolaciones en el entretenimiento de califas y reyes, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Ms. Árabe 528; and the Corán de Muley Zaydán, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Ms. Árabe 1340.
18 Codex Conciliorum Albeldensis seu Vigilanus, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Ms. D.I.2; and S. Beati de Liebana explanatio in Apocalypsin S. Johannis, Biblioteca de El Escorial, Ms. &-II-5; the latter of these is available online at <https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/s/rbme/item/13137#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2449%2C-208%2C7392%2C4159> (accessed 4 March 2023); further references are to this digitized edition and will be given in parentheses in the main text. A second, later Beatus, from the sixteenth century (Ms. f.I.7) is also held at the Biblioteca de El Escorial, but does not contain any illuminations.
19 Codex granatensis. De natura rerum, de Tomás de Cantimpré. De avibus nobilibus. Tacuinum sanitatis, de Ibn-Butlán, facsimile ed.; available online at <https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/6525> (accessed 21 March 2023). The index of quadrupeds appears on page [4] of the linked .pdf file; for a modern textual transcription, see Thomas de Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum. Editio princeps secundum codices manuscriptos, ed. Helmut Boese (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), 101.
20 The entry for ‘Leo’ appears on page [35] of the .pdf facsimile file; the entry for ‘Equus’ on page [29]; and the entry for ‘Canis’ on page [15].
21 See the digitized version of this codex given above in note 13; the images appear on F-0040v, F-0017v and F-0050v, respectively.
22 Beato de Liébana, Comentario al Apocalipsis, in Obras completas y complementarias, ed., con intro. de Joaquín González Echegaray, Alberto del Campo & Leslie G. Freeman, 2 vols (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2004), I, Comentario al Apocalipsis. Himno ‘O Dei Verbum’. Apologético, 5–644. This work offers an edition of the Latin text, based on three of the codices, together with a Spanish translation.
23 Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 91; image caption.
24 In his letter of 21 September 1929, Lorca mentions that he is working on a lecture on ‘La Virgen en Alfonso X el Sabio y en Gonzalo de Berceo’, and two pages of notes are extant in the family archive: Federico García Lorca, Epistolario completo, ed. Andrew A. Anderson & Christopher Maurer (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997), 647, n. 660.
25 Saint Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse, The Morgan Library, Ms. M.644; digitized version available at <https://www.themorgan.org/collection/commentary-apocalypse/110807/thumbs> (accessed 4 March 2023).
26 Saint Beatus of Liébana, Commentary on the Apocalypse and Commentary on the Book of Daniel [Las Huelgas Apocalypse], The Morgan Library, Ms. M.429; digitized version available at <https://www.themorgan.org/collection/commentary-apocalypse/112348/thumbs> (accessed 4 March 2023).
27 Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 91–95. For his part, José Luis Plaza Chillón focuses on the Beato de Facundo, more properly the Beato de Fernando I y Sancha, held in the Biblioteca Nacional de España, of which Lorca makes no specific mention; see José Luis Plaza Chillón, El Apocalipsis según Federico García Lorca: los dibujos de Nueva York (Granada: Comares, 2022), 90–92 & 99–101.
28 This feature does not appear in the corresponding illumination in the later Morgan codex, Ms. M.429, fol. 92r.
29 See Eutimio Martín, El 5° evangelio. La proyección de Cristo en Federico García Lorca (Madrid: Aguilar, 2013).
30 The detail of licking the feet is not found in the book of Daniel, and may have been derived from a variety of Jewish, Islamic and classical texts (Francisco de Asís García García, ‘Daniel en el foso de los leones’, Revista Digital de Iconografía Medieval, 1:1 [2009], 11–24; available online at <https://www.ucm.es/bdiconografiamedieval/daniel-en-el-foso> [accessed 22 March 2023]).
31 See Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 88, n. 10, and García Lorca, Dibujos, ed. Hernández, 118. This drawing is one of two that receive an extended commentary in Hernández’s essay, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 97–107. Plaza Chillón also dedicates several pages to it (El Apocalipsis según Federico García Lorca, 115–23).
32 Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 100.
33 Hernández, ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 99. See García Lorca, Libro de los dibujos de Federico García Lorca, ed. Hernández, Nos 77, 78, 80, 102, 103, 223. Lorca does not adopt explicitly the topos of the sad clown, but rather, as Plaza Chillón suggests, ‘en sus dibujos de desangelados clowns mostrará camuflada su propia angustia’ (José Luis Plaza Chillón, ‘Payasos, pierrots y saltimbanquis: su dimensión autobiográfica y social en Picasso y Federico García Lorca’, Cuadernos de Arte de la Universidad de Granada, 43 [2012], 95–114 [p. 99]; available online at <https://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/caug/article/view/2676> [accessed 22 March 2023]).
34 It is widely believed that this practice in turn influenced the original design of the Superman and Batman costumes in the 1930s. See the extensive discussion on question-and-answer site Quora in response to the anonymous question, ‘Why does Superman wear the underpants on the outside?’, Quora.com, 1 June 2015; available at <https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Superman-wear-the-underpants-on-the-outside> (accessed 5 January 2023).
35 The first magazine serialization appeared in 1912, the first book in 1914, and the first film in 1918. Many others followed throughout the 1920s.
36 Sascha performed at Coney Island's Dreamland Circus Sideshow during the 1910s.
37 These included the Dreamland Circus Sideshow, Luna Park, the Steeplechase Circus Big Show, the Strand Museum, the Wonderland Circus Side Show and the World Circus Side Show.
38 ‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 100. Plaza Chillón follows his lead, referring to ‘un insólito animal amarrado con una cadena’ (El Apocalipsis según Federico García Lorca, 116).
39 Photograph available online at <https://apaibailoni.blogspot.com/2013/04/hermandad-del-glorioso-arcangel-san.html> (accessed 26 April 2023).
40 The Escorial codex Ms. &-II-5 has a splendid illumination of the scene, fol. 0134r, but strangely the animal has no reins; she also appears on fol. 024v, but here she is not mounted on an animal. The illumination in the Morgan Library’s Ms. M.644, fol. 42r is so degraded as to be not worthy of reproduction, but a red halter around the animal’s neck is just visible.
41 In the next biblical verse (Revelation, 17:5) she is linked with Babylon, as she is in the commentary text of the Beatos (Beatus, Comentario al Apocalipsis, ed. González Echegaray, Campo & Freeman, 550; Morgan Ms. M.429, fol. 125r–26v), thereby creating another possible connection with Lorca’s vision of New York as ‘Babylonian’ (Epistolario completo, ed. Anderson & Maurer, 615 & 624), a notion that had by 1929 become something of a cliché.
42 Jerrilynn D. Dodds, ‘The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconography and Iconology’, The Art Bulletin, 61:2 (1979), 186–97 (p. 192).
43 Simone Pinet, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, Medieval Encounters, Special Issue, ed. Cynthia Robinson & Simone Pinet, 14:2–3 (2008), 368–89.
44 Carmen Rallo Gruss, ‘The Painted Garden: The Paintings in the Sala de los Reyes of the Patio de los Leones’, Cuadernos de La Alhambra, 49 (2020), 315–30 (p. 325).
45 See ‘Frauenfeld’, Heraldry of the World, n.d., n.p., <https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php?title=Frauenfeld> (accessed 4 March 2023). The website offers reproductions of a number of versions of the coat of arms that utilize the three basic elements (lion, chain and lady).
46 Hernández incorrectly states that Urania printed the two issues of the journal gallo (1928), from which he derives a date (García Lorca, Libro de los dibujos de Federico García Lorca, ed. Hernández, 198), whereas it was actually the Paulino Ventura Traveset press that produced gallo.
47 For his part, Hernández sees not teeth at all but ‘una especie de baba o espuma goteante’ (‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 100).
48 The black lines outlining the figure’s leg are visible through the animal’s body; it is hard to determine to what extent this should be taken as interpretationally significant.
49 A circus tent appears in a couple of Lorca’s drawings (see García Lorca, Libro de los dibujos de Federico García Lorca, ed. Hernández, Nos 79 & 104).
50 The elegant and sharply pointed ankle boot is another disparate element that does not fit with the profession of strongman (or, for that matter, lion tamer).
51 As this is his right hand, this would in theory be his right ring finger, though the relative proportion of the four fingers and thumb is completely skewed.
52 While I would not wish to privilege biographical readings, it is worth noting that the last section, ‘Carne’, of Lorca’s ‘Oda al Santísimo Sacramento del Altar’ is dated on the manuscript to 17 September 1929 (Archivo Fundación Federico García Lorca).
53 Escorial Ms. &-II-5 fol. 0105r, fol. 0118r, fol. 0150r; Morgan Ms. M.429, fol. 98r; Morgan Ms. M.644, fol. 243v.
54 José Luis Plaza Chillón contemplates the possibility that the animal in the drawings ‘ora muestra el horror a la castración, ora sea su propio símbolo fálico que lo atormenta’ (José Luis Plaza Chillón, ‘La dimensión gráfica de Poeta en Nueva York: los dibujos neoyorquinos de Federico García Lorca’, Péndulo: Revista de Ingeniería y Humanidades, 27 [2016], 22–35 [p. 31]); see also El Apocalipsis según Federico García Lorca, 101, 104–05 & 121. For Hernández it ‘se identifica latamente con el Mal y la Muerte’ while on occasions ‘alude a la libido del propio poeta […] con la que se siente en dolorosa pugna’ (‘Ronda de los autorretratos’, 96).
55 Federico García Lorca, Poeta en Nueva York, ed., intro. & notas de Andrew A. Anderson (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2013), 170.
56 Sigmund Freud, Writings on Art and Literature, trans. James Strachey, with an intro. by Neil Hertz (Stanford: Stanford U. P., 1997), 220. Severed hands are a more frequent motif in Lorca’s drawings and also figure in one from the New York period, No. 166, Animal fabuloso dirigiéndose a una casa.
57 Freud, Writings on Art and Literature, trans. Strachey, 264.
58 Julia Kristeva, The Severed Head. Capital Visions, trans. Jody Gladding (New York: Columbia U. P., 2011 [1st French ed. 1998]), 4–5. In the essay on the uncanny, Freud had already referred to Otto Rank and his theory that ‘probably the “immortal” soul was the first “double” of the body’ (Writings on Art and Literature, trans. Strachey, 210).
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.