Stirling, Ford, and nineteenth-century reception of Goya: The case of the <i>Santa Justa and Santa Rufina</i>: 'abomination' or 'appropriate composition'?

This article considers an aspect of the complex relationship between the two best-known British Hispanophiles, Richard Ford and William Stirling, as the starting point for an examination of their response to Goya's art, in particular, his Santa Justa and Santa Rufina (1817, Seville Cathedral). In February 1845, William Stirling went to Spain to carry out further research for his Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), taking with him one of the very few copies of the suppressed edition of Ford's Hand-Book for Spain (1845). Among the paintings he made notes on was Goya's Santa Justa and Santa Rufina, which Ford had attacked as a 'David-like abomination', claiming also that the models for the virgin martyrs were strumpets. Stirling disagreed with Ford's assessment, but, by the time his Annals were published in 1848, he had come much closer to Ford's view. The article ponders the reasons for Ford's attack on this work by Goya, and for Stirling's change of mind. Their assessment of the painting is also considered in the context of how much each knew about Goya's art at this time, including other examples of his works they saw or wrote about. Both writers reacted against the neo-classical aspects of the painting, and the article considers this in the light of Ceán Bermúdez's close involvement in this commission for Seville Cathedral, and his publication of a pamphlet on the painting in 1817. Stirling, however, became an important collector of Goya's works, some of which were illustrated or referred to in the Annals. His entry on the artist also incorporated other myths, in addition to that supplied by Ford, notably provided by Bartolomé José Gallardo and Théophile Gautier. Nevertheless, it was surprisingly balanced, and provided the most extensive and appreciative account of the artist in English by

Reflections on the painting of Alejandro Puente, the notion of <i>Pathosformel</i>, and the return to life of mortally wounded civilizations

The Argentine author José Burucúa is a key figure in the introduction and dissemination of Aby Warburg's theories to scholarship in Latin America. In this article he tests Warburg's concept of Pathosformel to discuss the development of visual culture in Andean pre-Hispanic art and contemporary painting in Argentina. It is argued that the abstract world created by prominent painters, such as Libero Badii, César Paternosto, and Alejandro Puente, deepened their roots in pre-Hispanic culture. Burucúa's theoretical approach to the arts in Argentina has been highly influential on visual culture studies in Latin America

Parallel modernities. Notes on artistic modernity in the Southern Cone of Latin America: The case of Paraguay

The author of this article is one of the most important intellectuals in the Latin American artistic scene. Focusing on the particular case of Paraguay, which was governed by the dictatorship of Alfred Stroessner from 1954 until 1989, Escobar traces the modernist impulse in Paraguay and traces its complicated and disturbed relationship with European and North American models and antecedents: Neo-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, Abstraction, and similar. While they reflect the particular political conditions under which the artists worked, the diverse and many-voiced Paraguayan responses also offer an exemplary set of responses that shed light on the development of twentieth-century modernist art and visual culture across the broader South American continent

Product market reforms, labour market institutions and unemployment

We analyze the impact of product market competition on unemployment and wages, and how this depends on labour market institutions. We use differential changes in regulations across OECD countries over the 1980s and 1990s to identify the effects of competition. We find that increased product market competition reduces unemployment, and that it does so more in countries with labour market institutions that increase worker bargaining power. The theoretical intuition is that both firms with market power and unions with bargaining power are constrained in their behaviour by the elasticity of demand in the product market. We also find that the effect of increased competition on real wages is beneficial to workers, but less so when they have high bargaining power. Intuitively, real wages increase through a drop in the general price level, but workers with bargaining power lose out somewhat from a reduction in the rents that they had previously captured

Employment protection legislation, multinational firms and innovation

The theoretical effects of labour regulations such as employment protection legislation (EPL) on innovation is ambiguous, and empirical evidence has thus far been inconclusive. EPL increases job security and the greater enforceability of job contracts may increase worker investment in innovative activity. On the other hand EPL increases adjustment costs faced by firms, and this may lead to under-investment in activities that are likely to require adjustment, including technologically advanced innovation. In this paper we find empirical evidence that both effects are at work - multinational enterprises locate more innovative activity in countries with high EPL, however they locate more technologically advanced innovation in countries with low EPL.Innovation, employment protection, multinational firm location

Racial Ethnic Equality in Child Well-Being from 1985-2004: Gaps Narrowing, but Persist

Analyzes changes in safety/behavioral concerns, family economic well-being, health, community connectedness, educational attainment, social relationships, and emotional/spiritual well-being by race and ethnicity. Tracks disparities between groups

The location of innovative activity in Europe

In this paper we use new data to describe how firms from 15 European countries organise their innovative activities. The data matches firm level accounting data with information on the patents that those firms and their subsidiaries have applied for at the European Patents Office. We describe the data in detail

Product market reforms, labour market institutions and unemployment

We analyze the impact of product market competition on unemployment and wages, and how this depends on labour market institutions. We use differential changes in regulations across OECD countries over the 1980s and 1990s to identify the effects of competition. We find that increased product market competition reduces unemployment, and that it does so more in countries with labour market institutions that increase worker bargaining power. The theoretical intuition is that both firms with market power and unions with bargaining power are constrained in their behaviour by the elasticity of demand in the product market. We also find that the effect of increased competition on real wages is beneficial to workers, but less so when they have high bargaining power. Intuitively, real wages increase through a drop in the general price level, but workers with bargaining power lose out somewhat from a reduction in the rents that they had previously captured.Product market regulation; competition; wage bargaining; unemployment.