Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez (17 September 1749 in

Gijón Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and municipality by population in the autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coast of the Cantabrian Sea in the Bay of Biscay, in the cent ...

3 December 1829 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

) was a Spanish writer on

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

Biography

Bermúdez was born in

Asturias Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensiv ...

. He founded an art academy at

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

, and was given responsibility to order the

Archivo General de Indias The Archivo General de Indias (, "General Archive of the Indies"), housed in the ancient merchants' exchange of Seville, Spain, the ''Casa Lonja de Mercaderes'', is the repository of extremely valuable archival documents illustrating the history ...

or the repository of documents relating to the Colonies. He later made secretary of the Council for Indian Affairs in Madrid, a post later lost. He put himself in the service of the statesman and author

Jovellanos Jovellanos is a municipality and town in the Matanzas Province of Cuba. Overview The municipality is divided into the barrios of Asunción, Isabel, Realengo and San José. It was founded in 1842 as Corral de la Bemba on the location of an old ...

and wrote his master's biography; Jovellanos then helped pay for his artistic studies and placed him in a government position. He is best known as the author of the ''Diccionario Historico'', a biographical dictionary of the principal artists of Spain. He was also a friend of

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

Works

*''Diccionario historico de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes de Espana'' (Madr. 1800, 6 Vols.

*''Descripcion artistica de la catedral de Sevilla'' (Sevilla 1804) *''Carta sobre el estilo y gusto en la pintura de la escuela sevillana'' (Cadiz 1806) *''Memorias para la vita del G. M. de Jovellanos'' (Madr. 1814) *''Dialogo sobre el arte de la pintura'' (Sevilla 1819) *''Noticias de los arquitectos y arquitectura de Espana'' (Madr. 1829, 4 Vols.) *''Sumario de las antiguedades romanas, que hay en Espana'' (Madr. 1832, posthumous)

Internet

*''Arte Espanol: Proyecto Diccionario Cean Bermudez''. 2006. http://www.ceanbermudez.e
Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez on arthistoricum.net

References

External links

1749 births 1834 deaths People from Gijón Spanish male writers Spanish art historians {{Spain-writer-stub