Architecture and Narration in Baile en máscara by Paret y Alcázar. Space and Graphic Representation for the Theatralisation of an Eighteenth-Century Social Event

Abstract

Luis Paret y Alcázar is a painter who has recently aroused a renewed critical interest. Baile en máscara is one of his most highly appreciated works, both for its purely pictorial values and for its documentary and argumentative capacity to depict a particular historical time and place.

This article looks at this work from a perspective that takes architecture and its narrative as a fundamental reference. Firstly, it looks at the space represented, generally identified as the del Príncipe’s theatre, comparing the information offered by the painting with the information derived from the study of the architecture itself by consulting archival records and a certain bibliography that is usually neglected. Secondly, the resources used to construct the image and its effects on the positioning of the viewer of the work are analysed.

On the basis of the previous argument, it is concluded that the space painted by Paret reflects the Coliseo del Príncipe, but in the state in which it was altered to convert it into a salon in 1767. It also provides a conclusive graphic reconstitution of its form. The interpretation of the work's graphic-narrative resources also reveals its ‘Italian-style theatrical’ character.