Abstract

This article examines the change in meaning of the Spanish term ›invención‹, from ›search for and collection of existing premises‹ to ›invention of something new‹, a change which took place in the 18th century. Dictionaries and representative examples of Spanish literature from the Age of Enlightenment are analysed. The rôle of ›invención‹ in painting changes particularly which becomes apparent by a comparison of Palomino in the first half of the 18th century to Goya and his contemporaries in the second half. Major differences between the two artists consist in self-assurance and self-assessment.The ›invención‹ also plays an important rôle in the discussion of the term ›Genius‹, a discussion which had already begun in Spanish Renaissance and which continued intensively through the 18th century.