In Miguel de Cervantes story, “The Illustrious Kitchen Maid”, the use of femininity and mystery are combined to create this ‘illustrious‘ female character named Costanza. Throughout the entirety of Cervantes’ story about Costanza he keeps her identity very vague and reveals few details about her other than the fact that she is a very beautiful, independent girl. The story begins with two wealthy cavaliers, Don Diego de Carriazo and Don Juan de Avendano, who are going to study in Salamanca with their parent’s consent. However, they opt out of going to Salamanca and instead head to Seville, stopping at an inn on the way where they meet Costanza, and immediately Avendaro is enthralled with Herr. Throughout the story many men, including Avendaro, attempt to catch her attention but to no success, Costanza is disinterested in all the men who are enthralled with her and she pays them absolutely no attention.
Through this Costanza is depicted as very mysterious, usually keeping to herself and not speaking to the guests at the inn, which kind of depicts her of being snobbish. The story later then goes into detail about how Costanza isn’t a kitchen maid at all, she holds a key to the fine silverware that the inn provides to it’s guests of high honor. We then later find out that Costanza was left at the inn when she was a baby by a very distinguished lady. She comes from an extremely privileged background and by the end of the story she recovers her lost status and is married off, So we can see how contradictory the title is to the actual contents and ending of the story Cervantes has used other contradictory titles for other stories in his book of Exemplary Tales including ‘The Young Gypsy Girl’ and even through the use of naming the book “Exemplary Tales“, which seems incredibly innocent.
At the very end of the story is when Cervantes reveals Costanza’s true identity to the magistrate who comes in order to attempt to marry her off to her son, who she has never spoken. This is when the innkeeper tells him that Costanza’s mother secretly came to the inn to have her child and moved away after the birth telling the innkeeper to keep her daughter until someone came for her. The person who would come for Costanza would have half of a matching piece of parchment paper and matching links to a chain. Disappointed, the magistrate instructs the innkeeper to contact him whenever the person comes for Costanza with the items. The plot thickens when someone finally shows up with the missing pieces and it turns out to be Senor Don Diego, one of the cavalier’s fathers. They then arrange marriages between Don Diego de Carriazo and Don Juan de Avendano with Costanza and the magistrate’s daughter.
At the end of the story Cervantes goes into detail about the transformation Costanza goes through and how once she puts on clothes that aren’t her ‘maid clothes’ she finally looks like she’s in her rightful place and her true beauty is illuminated. A lot of symbolism can be pulled out of Costanza though, especially with how vague her description originally is. She is originally introduced as a very mysterious character since there is little background knowledge about her and her life and it turns out that she isn’t actually a maid at all. Overall, Costanza is a very powerful symbol for femininity. She is depicted as this strong female character, who is incredibly independent, showing no interest in the men who worship the ground that she walks on. Throughout the story she is depicted as almost emotionally—numb, until the very end where she breaks down at the return of her father.
In stories, especially from Cervantes time period, majority of women were held to a much lower standard and not as highly respected, but it is refreshing in Cervantes story to see such a strong symbol of femininity in something from circa 1600. However, while Cervantes depicts Costanza through literature and pictorial vividness, it can also be achieved through artwork. One of the most important things that Costanza symbolizes is her femininity and one artist in particular, Frida Kahlo, also accomplishes this. While Kahlo‘s an isn’t necessarily as old and celestial as the work that Cervantes does, there is still a lot of connections between the two forms of artwork On the cover of the book to ‘Exemplary Stories’ there is actually a painting titled ‘Girl with Tambourine’ by Jusepe de Ribera, which was painted in 1637, However, Kahlo’s painting ‘Self—Pottrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird’ is almost a more modern piece of Ribera’s work.
Both images depict central female figures, who wouldn’t necessarily be considered the most beautiful women like Costanza, but they hold very a strong sense of femininity in the paintings. Specifically, Kahlo‘s painting was done after her divorce with her husband due to his affair with another artist. The painting has more of a dark appeal, with Kahlo wearing a necklace made of thorns that is digging into her skin with a dead hummingbird hung from it On both of her shoulders sits a cat and a monkey, these objects provide a great deal of symbolism to depict Kahlo’s emotions. The expression on her face is dark and blank, but while the picture takes on a darker perspective it still expresses a strong sense of femininity from Kahlo, After her tragic life events it really expresses how strong of a person she is and her independence. Kahlo is known for her self-portraits depicting herself in many different forms and they all have such a strong appeal to feminism.
In comparison, Ribera’s painting of ‘Girl with Tambourine’ represents a girl who looks much younger than Kahlo, probably more along the lines of Costanza’s age, She has a more innocent smirk on her face as she holds the instrument in her hand, Both paintings combined accurately depict the story of Costanza, including both innocence and tragedy. Costanza is very innocent and naive to the actual tragic events of her life as a young child, with her mother giving birth to her in secret and then fleeing to a different village and eventually dying there. In the self portrait of Frida, we see her draped in this white top which we can ultimately assume exemplifies innocence. The youthful smile on the girl with the tambourine face, yet the tragedy embedded in Kahlo’s self portrait combined can tell a story of Costanza’s life. However, the colors we see used in both paintings vary significantly.
Kahlo’s self portrait utilizes a cooler palette of colors, because generally with blues and greens we don‘t associate positive or happy emotions. We can conclude that the color palette used by Kahlo is reflective of the emotions she is attempting to convey through her piece of art, in addition to the cool colors there are also large portions of the picture that are black, which includes the cat and monkey on her shoulder. This is important symbolism, especially with the cat, because generally we see black cats as a sign of bad luck, The black dead hummingbird hanging around her neck is often also a sign of back luck or a bad omen, however the Aztecs wore dead hummingbirds around their neck in war for good luck. With Kahlo’s rich hispanic background, it is possible that she is implementing cultural Lies in her portrait as well. In contrast, the girl with the tambourine uses a lot more warm colors which include reds and warm flesh tones.
The overall feeling of the painting does not convey any kind of tragic emotions, but depicts a girl holding an instrument with a goofy smile on her face, Generally, historically speaking, tambourines are associated with religious context, almost of a heavenly nature. So we can infer that the overall mood of this painting is a lot more light and airy just by observation of the girl and colors in the picture. The girl looks very young and her smile depicts a grin that looks almost innocent. When we take all these aspects from the artwork and literature, we can find many parallels throughout the works of art. Different themes are carried over throughout the works. Much of the symbolism that Costanza represents can be seen in both ‘Girl with Tambourine‘ and Kahlo’s ‘Self—Portrait‘.
Both of the pictures are slightly vague, just like the story of Costanza’s life. However, at the end of the story of Costanza, we see the story of her life come full circle and we finally understand the story and how contradictory the title of the story actually is, With a story that is full of both naive innocence and tragedy, we see that the end of the story is both hopeful and promising for Costanza. In both forms of an we see that both description and detail is vital to convey the messages the author and artist wants to convey Through strategic use of material and composition we can infer the message that the artist is attempting to reiterate through their work of art The overall theme of both Cervantes’ story and the two paintings depict a strong sense of feminism and an independent figure for women.
In the time period that all these works were created, women were not considered to be held to the standard that men were, so it would be uncommon to have such a strong feminist position in these pieces of work. However, all of these pictures depict strong females, especially in the story of Cervantes’ and Kahlo’s self portrait. Through tragedy and innocence we can see the ongoing struggle of women in society, even in modern times, These stories and paintings can have messages that can even be applied today. It is important that we, as women, appreciate pieces of work like these because throughout history women were considered second class to men and it is refreshing to see such strong women in stories and pieces of art, especially before the time of women’s rights.
