Frameworks: The Limits of Perception and Representation in Spanish Narrative and Painting, 1880-1920

Abstract

Realism is a mode of representation that purports to depict contemporary society objectively and in its entirety. By contrast, modernist artists are often regarded as having turned away from external reality to represent subjective states and to emphasize the artistic (versus mimetic) qualities of art. Building on recent scholarship that has demonstrated that Spanish realist authors were mindful of the limitations of the realist project, this study examines frames as devices through which both realist and modernist authors and artists working in fin-de-siècle Spain signal the limits of perception and representation.