Washington Irving and All Things Spanish

If we take a look at the United States during the 19th century to see what role Hispanics played in the early years of this new nation, we are pleasantly surprised to see that not only were many Hispanics involved in the political genesis of the U.S. (Bernardo Gálvez, Juan de Miralles, Francisco Bouligny, Diego Gardoqui, Juan Eligio de la Puente y Regidor, Luciano Herrera, Antonio Raffolin,el Conde de Aranda, to name a few), but also that the earliest free citizens in the Americas, especially those belonging to the privileged classes, felt a great attraction for things Hispanic and reflected this interest in their writings and artistic output.

And I say pleasantly surprised because contemporary researchers studying the cultural and political relationships between these two groups are influenced by the conflicts and misunderstandings that characterize attempts at mutual understanding between Hispanics and Americans today. And so we ask, when did this change in attitude take place? When did the shift in our cultural relationship and mutual appreciation occur? And what were the causes of the conflicts and misunderstandings that exist today?

The 19th century, with its unrest and restlessness, is indeed the time when many unfortunate events took place in this part of the world which could be the causes of the change in perception that shattered the romantic view that North American society had of anything Hispanic up until that time, including the way writers and artists portrayed Spain. From the beginning of the 19th century, Catholics and Protestants fought for an identity in the same geographic space. The Anglo-Protestants, who at first did not consider Catholicism a threat, soon changed their minds when they saw the expansion of that creed both within and outside of the Union. They began to develop “nativist” positions that legitimized the politico-religious movement known as “manifest destiny” and the creation of xenophobic and anti-Catholic political parties such as the “Know-nothings”. The development of this view of the world produced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 under the banner of “America for the Americans”. This concept was used as a weapon, mainly against Spain, and to a lesser degree against other European powers throughout the 19th century.  Military campaigns and anti-Spanish interventions were coupled with extensive propaganda against this perceived rival, and negative characterizations of anything Spanish began to flourish in dime novels and the yellow press so popular during this period of time. Their impact on the masses was significant, but even more alarming was that some of the intellectual elite also succumbed to the pressures. Walt Whitman and O’Henry were openly anti-Hispanic.

However, the majority of U.S. intellectuals, writers, historians, essayists and thinkers were still imbued with European Romanticism and continued to perceive of Spain and all things Spanish as a source of inspiration and cultural enrichment. Washington Irving, Longfellow, W. Prescott, R. Henry Dana, Bret Hart (of his 240 stories, 60 were on Hispanic topics and more than 100 of the characters that he created were clearly Hispanic), H.E. Bolton, H. H. Bancroft, J. R. Lowell, W. D. Howels, G.Ticknor, R. C. Sands, Robert Montgomery, W. C. Bryant, Buckingham Smith, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, W. G. Simms, General Lee Wallace, Helen Hunt Jackson, and J. Gilmary Shea are just some examples of the first Anglo-American humanists who, like many of their northern and central-European counterparts, did not consider themselves good writers or thinkers if they did not dedicate a significant portion of their writings or artistic creations to topics related to southern Europe, especially Spain. The Mercurio de Nueva York published a letter on September 5, 1829, signed by P.S.D. and addressed to the director of the Philadelphia Encyclopedic Review in which he states: “Our literature advances slowly; our progress is more evident in the applicable sciences than in the arts for pure enjoyment. Our authors need to go to Europe; but unfortunately, we are so far away. Mr. Washington Irving has garnered much praise with his History of Christopher Columbus.” (translation mine) And such was the success of this book by an American in England on a typically Romantic topic such as the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, that from 1828 to 1850, the book had 23 editions in England alone and was translated to French and German and used as a textbook in English classes.

It is in this context that the exhibit called “Washington Irving and the Alhambra. 150th Anniversary” was conceived and is now open to the public in the Palacio de Carlos V on the grounds of the Alhambra. The exhibit, openned for the period of one year, commemorates the death of the great New York Hispanist 150 years ago.

It is a bio-bibliographic overview of the life of Washington Irving, his times, and his trips through Europe, England and Spain particularly. It highlights his literary work (especially those pieces inspired by his time in Spain), his own attempts at art through his drawings, and his friendships with Spanish, European and American painters, writers and intellectuals during the six years and five months that he lived in Spain between 1826 and 1845. The exhibit is full of references on his work and the work of his friends as well as letters, portraits and princeps editions of his books, especially those on Spanish themes such as The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, The Conquest  of Granada y Tales of the Alhambra.

The exhibit also includes a large collection of portraits of Washington Irving including the most famous “Washington Irving consulting the Seville´s Archives” (1828) by his Scottish friend David Wilkie as well as paintings, letters and books by many other writers, thinkers and friends who were part of Irving´s life in Europe. Among these we find the artists Washington Allston, C. R. Leslie, G. Stuart Newton, David Wilkie and Luis Muriel San Miguel, and the man of letters Duke of Gor (portrayed by F. Madrazo). The exhibit contextualizes the entire collection of painting collected by Washington Irving within European Romanticism and focuses on Irving’s fixation on the orientalism of which, the depiction and description of the Arabic ruins in southern Spain by him and his friends, is part of.

The exhibit also includes a wealth of documents on Irving gathered from all over Europe and the United States, bringing the work of one of the most important American Romantic writers and Hispanists to the forefront of our collective memory and rescuing Irving and his work from relative oblivion on both sides of the Atlantic.

Irving’s biographer, Stanley T. Williams, defines Irving as romantic, cosmopolitan and modern. This exhibit proves that definition to be an accurate one by highlighting his travels, the descriptions in his travel journals and the open-minded, unprejudiced observations he made of the peoples he met along the way.