59 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth Borton De TreviñoI, Juan de Pareja
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1965A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Juan’s Gold Earring
Juan’s gold earring originally belonged to his mother, Zulema. Juan’s father gave Zulema a pair of earrings as a present, along with a gold bracelet. Zulema dies when Juan is five, and he remembers little about her save that she was a “tender creature, lavish with small caresses and kindnesses” (4). After Zulema’s death, Doña Emilia takes Juan into her service and gives Juan one of his mother’s gold earrings, piercing his ear so that he might wear it. Here, the gold earring symbolizes Juan’s lingering connection with Zulema. Though Juan’s memories of his mother are limited, he remains tethered to her “sense of safety and of love” through her earring and retains an identity separate from his enslavement (4).
Juan’s gold earring stays with him for most of his young adulthood. When first arriving in Madrid, he notices that his earring is missing, speculating that “[Don Carmelo] had stolen [his] earring as [he] lay unconscious” (41). However, Diego replaces the missing earring with its mate, threading it through Juan’s ear just as Emilia had. Juan admits that he is “glad to feel [the earring] bobbing against [his] cheek” (41). In stealing the earring, Carmelo robbed Juan of his connection with his mother and reduced Juan to his status as an enslaved man, someone without family or an identity that suggests his humanity. In restoring Juan’s earring, contrarily, Diego presents himself as benevolent, willing to recognize Juan’s past and his capacity for love.
Ultimately, though Juan wears his mother’s earring for many years, he ends up selling it. Once Juan discovers his passion for painting, he pawns the earring—“the one thing [he] had that still had been [his] mother’s” (87)—to afford supplies. Juan anticipates the reader’s criticism and explains the “longing [he] felt to get brush and colors into [his] hand” (87). In selling the gold earring, Juan symbolically replaces his mother’s love with his new passion for art, signaling that Juan has totally assumed the identity of artist.
Las Meninas
Las Meninas—or The Ladies-in-Waiting—is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, in which the artist depicts himself painting among the Spanish court. The painting is a domestic scene, and the King explains its genius: “[B]y using mirrors, [Diego] made portraits of my Queen and my children and myself” (172). Indeed, art critics have noted that Las Meninas excels in its experimentation with perspective. Several of the figures—including Velázquez himself—look out toward the viewer into an unspecified distance. The king and the queen, by contrast, are only represented through their mirrored reflection in the painting’s background.
The painting’s exact meaning remains shrouded in mystery, and in the novel, its introduction coincides with a similar uncertainty. Before Juan leaves for Seville, he visits the King, and together, they suppose that Diego regretted not freeing Juan sooner. “I know how he felt,” the King decides, “for I too have been remiss and tardy” (172). To rectify this, the King proposes that he and Juan amend Diego’s image, and together they trace “the Cross of Santiago on Master’s breast” (173). Included in this scene of curiosity, wonder, and revision, Las Meninas becomes a symbol of not just artistic intent but a broader interaction between viewer and artist. In obscuring his exact design, Diego encourages the viewer—in this case, Juan and the King—to be guided by their own impressions instead. In this way, the painting constantly changes, alternating between meanings. Las Meninas, in all its mystery, is a symbol of the subjectivity of art and, in turn, its posterity.
Light
Throughout the novel, de Treviño uses the motif of light to suggest Diego’s adherence to artistic truth. After receiving his first commission from the King, Diego imagines his new studio, emphasizing that “it must have light […] nothing else matters” (54). Light traditionally represents clarity and transparency, and in thoroughly lighting his studio, Diego aims to penetrate his sitter’s mystery. Indeed, Diego’s portraits provide illuminations of their own, reaching beyond likeness to achieve emotional depth. For instance, Juan admits that by depicting each of the King’s entertainers faithfully, Diego conveys “a soul imprisoned” (114).
However, even though Diego uses light to pursue a greater truth, light is itself subjective. Not only is light manipulated—as when Juan favorably directs the ambient sunlight—but it also varies according to differences in setting. For instance, when Juan and Diego are first traveling through Italy, Diego notices that “the light here is different from that of Spain” (86). In Italy, Diego explains, “the light seems liquid and has a soft glow,” whereas in Spain, “the light is clear and sharp and blinding” (86). Here, light is not an objective force but bends according to differences in culture. Juan often describes Spain according to its simple fashion—Diego and the King both wear all black—and Italy according to its ostentatiousness, criticizing it as “flamboyant and haughty” (89). In assuming the characteristics of each setting—that is, flatteringly soft in Italy and severe in Spain—light reveals its susceptibility to influence. De Treviño utilizes this complicated motif in The Relative Truth of Art.
Written or Spoken Language
From the very beginning of the novel, language is characterized according to its potential for deceit. Doña Emilia teaches Juan how to read and write, but only so that he might assume Emilia’s voice in letters to her sister and nephew. Though Juan is grateful, he recognizes in language an opportunity for self-flattery. When the magistrate speaks of his merciful nature, Juan knows better than to trust him, explaining that he and other enslaved people “learn to fear the master who prefaces his remarks with tributes to his own virtue” (25). Language assumes the same qualities as a disguise, able to confuse one’s true character with a flattering ideal.
Diego, too, prefers not to speak but to act, and his caution conveys authenticity to Juan. He describes Diego as characteristically “taciturn” and suggests that they “[can] be silent together for many hours without feeling any pangs of solitude” (85). Diego explains this phenomenon further, offering that “[his] canvases are [his] conversation” and positioning art as the most genuine form of communication (94), strengthening The Relative Truth of Art. This lack of written and spoken language in Juan and Diego’s relationship speaks to its true depth. Their affection is neither created nor pretended but instead exists in silence, an example of true friendship.
