Velázquez and Cervantes in the Ortega’s System: the Assimilation of two Modern Authors in a “not Modern” Philosophy

Abstract

This article tries to demonstrate that Ortega's philosophy contains modern elements beyond what the author declared. Thus, in contrast with the mathematizing Modernity initiated by Descartes, the Spanish philosopher assimilated ideas of another Modernity that Velázquez and Cervantes led. The investigation will show, in the first place, Ortega's critique of Cartesian philosophy. Then we analyse Ortega's interpretation of Velazquez's painting and what philosophical aspects of it he assimilates. Finally, this paper proves how the pictorial approaches of the author of Las Meninas are consistent ‒from Ortega's point of view‒ with the approaches of Cervantes in Don Quixote. It will be proven that Ortega y Gasset is imprecise in qualifying himself as "nothing modern": it is only a variant of modern thought that he denies, including in his philosophy ideas extracted from his interpretations of Spanish Golden Age.