Portrait and Status. An Approach to the Author’s Image

Abstract

The increasing development of the printer has created a fruitful field of social relations leading to the appearance of the manuscript. Mass production together with the renewed concept of the author, due to the recently implemented writing legislation, pushes the creator to seek for the public recognition of himself. The author set himself apart of the guilds and started to be in contact with many other professional sectors with the final intention of obtaining fame and renown. Lope de Vega is the main promoter of this new tendency that relates poetry and its’ market focused on the author as a professional. The portrait is one of the genre mostly used as self-affirmation as well as other types of visual arts. The use of the portrait is so extended that its own definition gets modified and it even reaches the level of being the most trustful proof of authorship of the manuscript. Many different writers use it both for seeking a professional fame or a social standing, as for example Rebolledo. The concern for not being able to show a picture of himself leads Cervantes to state the first literary self-portrait, not only describing the physical aspects but also tracing the psychological sketch of the creative process. Many different authors have had concerns to represent the psychology of the creator either in a visual way or in a literary mode. A brief approach to these creators proves this fact.