Jose Ramon Marcaida Lopez

My research and teaching focuses on the intersections of art and science in early modernity, with a particular focus on the Hispanic context. My current research interests include the history of Spanish painting in the age of Velázquez, and in particular a study of the significance of the notion of ingenio in this context. In connection with the concept of ingenio, I am also interested in the history of practical knowledge in the early Americas, specifically through an analysis of the figure of the baquiano. Following on from previous work, I continue to study the contribution of images and image-makers to early modern science; of particular interest is the history of the visual materials produced in the context of the Francisco Hernández Expedition (1570-1577), specifically the illustrations (by the Flemish artist Christoffel Jegher) featured in the treatise Historia naturae maxime peregrinae (1635) by the Spanish Jesuit scholar Juan Eusebio Nieremberg.

My first book, Arte y ciencia en el Barroco español. Historia natural, coleccionismo y cultura visual (Marcial Pons Historia, 2014), considers Spanish Baroque visual culture from the perspective of early modern science, exploring processes of visualization and knowledge-production linked to artistic practice, art collecting and natural historical enquiry in the period ca. 1570-1650.

Together with Alexander Marr, Raphaële Garrod and Richard Oosterhoff, I am also the co-author of Logodaedalus. Word Histories of Ingenuity in Early Modern Europe (Pittsburgh University Press, 2019), which offers an account of the meanings and uses of the notion of ingenuity across several European languages, shedding light on its prevalence in areas like medicine, natural philosophy, and artistic theory.

Prior to St Andrews I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, as part of the ERC-funded Project Genius Before Romanticism: Ingenuity in Early Modern Art and Science. I also worked as Affiliated Lecturer at the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, and before that I was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. I completed my PhD in 2011 at the CSIC / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Art and visual culture in the early modern Hispanic world; Spanish Baroque art and culture; Visual and material culture of science, medicine and technology; Skill, practices, materials and techniques