Colecciones de arte

Balcón abierto y plato con pescados, 1924

FICHA TÉCNICA
Balcón abierto y plato con pescados, 1924
(Open Balcony and Plate of Fish)
Oil on fabric, 121 x 86 cm.

The letters that Manuel Ángeles Ortiz wrote to Manuel de Falla in 1922 serve as enlightening and emotive documents dealing with the encounter of the young-at-the-time artist and the already mature Picasso.Picasso took an immediate and cordial liking to his visitor, not only because of their shared tastes and the memory that Ángeles Ortiz unexpectedly brought him from his native land, but also because Picasso discovered in his compatriot a plastic talent that especially interested him. Although he had refused similar treatment of other young artists, Picasso graced him with master classes. We could even say that his disciple was subjected to tasks and tests that he passed with notable success: Manuel Ángeles Ortiz was interested in resolving the problematic issues that led to the encounter between cubism and new classicism and in several drawings signed in 1923 we can see Manuel Ángeles Ortiz approaching the academic image of the female nude, seated in registers of cubist as well as neoclassicist elaboration, serving as a synthesis between both possibilities.

Open Balcony and Plate of Fish is Manuel Ángeles Ortiz's only oil on canvas signed in 1924, and only two compositions may exist that were possibly painted in 1925.Therefore, it is not possible to establish a sequence of realizations after his apprenticeship with Picasso, which took place in the winter of 1923.Although there are not very many, we are aware of some cubist pieces (and neoclassicist) dated to 1926. In some of these pieces, such as Mandolin Still Life, Manuel Ángeles Ortizto some extent resembles the Picasso of big cubist still lifes of 1924.In fact, Ángeles Ortiz's work brings to mind the famous still life Mandolin and Guitar from the Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In others, the painter does not elude a certain decorative taste, although it is suggestive and contained. On the other hand, in some of the pieces dated to 1926 we see how the artist had a special interest in diverting cubist plastics to the articulation of abstract superimposed or consecutive planes, which are briefly introduced by a figurative motif. It deals with a kind of understanding of the surface of the canvas that, in sensitivity,relates it to the Gleizes between 1915 and 1920, and closer in time to specific solutions offered by Gris and Pettoruti, painters with whom Ángeles Ortiz had frequent dealings since his arrival in the French capital. Likewise, in several compositions which use the guitar as a motif, Ángeles Ortiz, while tactically alluding to feminine shapes, develops, on abstract planes filled with substance, potent arabesques that lead the shapes to their destiny. In some of his last compositions, the artist becomes both radical in his intentionality and quite skillful in the results that he obtains.

As we can see, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz's cubist apprenticeship did not lead him to the mere mimicry of previously offered solutions or those that were becoming lost with time. The painter knew how to place his works in a precise moment during the long trajectory of cubism. And due to the credibility of his position, we could say that, even keeping in mind the Dali-like anticipation, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz was responsible for the renewed interest that was produced by cubism in the creative context of the Generation of '27.

The uniqueness of Open Balcony and Plate of Fish stems from it being a work that represents a synthesis of particular formal aspects that were carried over from cubism and the formal positions of the new classicism. In this respect, the painting is far more canonical than Cubist Still Lifefrom the Contemporary Art Collection (Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid). The drapery that the spectator observes in the upper portion of the painting is a theatrical ploy that places or highlights the significance of the piece as a representation, distancing the notion of painting-object that was suggested by a cubist aesthetic. What often happens in this kind of dual language proposal is that a gradation scale in the effects of the mimicry is established: from the abstract planes, on which the table leg is resolved, to the descriptive character, although superficially descriptive, of the shutters and the cloudy sky. Even so, the true protagonist of the painting is light, natural light that inundates the room and expresses itself through objective chromatic intensities.Natural light's principal role could arouse symbolist perceptions in the viewer, but in order to avoid it, the plate of fish, that places a dominant and composite viewpoint based on the joining of the ski and a circle, serves to anchor the domestic nature of the work and its relationship with traditional understanding of the still life as an encounter with the physical senses.

Although futurists had proposed the interior/exterior relationship in works using cubist language early on, since the start of the street goes into the house, which Juan Gris expressed in his manifestos (in his Still Life and Landscape. Ravignan Square, 1915), we owe the introduction of the motif, and of the icon theme in the cubist environment to him. Mark Rosenthal has written about the importance of the issue, linking Gris's experience, which was so important during the last decade of his production, to the dialog that he had initiated with Matisse when they met in Coillure in 1914. Although Gris had already raised the issue of the relationship between interior and exterior in the orthodox scope of cubism since 1912, the solution adopted in 1915 violated several of the original cubist principles: absolute homogeneity of the surface, the relationship of identity between background and form, the conception of the painting as a two-dimensional surface and the abolition of conventional notions--optical ones--of perspective and depth.Gris resolved the contradictions that thismotif suggested by creating plastic rhyme that linked the graphic nature of the open window and of the exterior to the other motifs that were represented. Other cubist painters, however, quickly assumed the naturalist effect that the motif was presenting. The relationship between cubism and new classicism favored this heterodoxy with respect to the initial cubist proposals.Picasso himself could not resist tackling an experience of this sort, and so he did in 1919, in one of his postwar masterpieces: Still Life Before a Window in Saint-Raphaël.The abundance of previous studies and of other pieces dating to the same time and with similar icon-related proposals in Picasso's catalog demonstrates the importance that the matter took on towards the end of cubism. Therefore, the fact that Manuel Ángeles Ortiz decided to deal with it is not anecdotal. In Picasso, the importance of the open balcony as a way to organize the interior space of the work, would, though assuming another content, hold true until The Dance. With other artists associated with Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, such as Pettorut, the issue would become a true leitmotiv of their work, although always in an attempt to describe the mystery of objects through chiaroscuro.

On the other hand, the iconic nature of the fish on the plate, may not be merely composite or anecdotal.And I am referring to something that goes beyond the very outlines of the still life as a genre. Marcoussis realized a work with the same themes and motifs as Manuel Ángeles Ortiz during the same period. Picasso had introduced the fish motif in a Still Life Before an Open Balcony, which he painted between 1922 and 1923. Although Picasso, always leaning towards what is authentic, placed fish--there were three, a magic number for Picasso--on wrapping paper as if they were fresh from the market. The coincidences are few, but intuitively it is tempting to think that the icons that are in question could function in the cubist context à bruit secret, as had occurred with the guitar icon theme. The fact that Open Balcony and a Plate of Fish belonged to the poet is a favorable indication of its interpretation that goes beyond what is merely visible. And naturally, the person who gave another meaning to the live fish converted into edible fish was Salvador Dalí. In works such as Composition with Three Figures, Neocubist Academy (1926, Montserrat Museum) or Still Life in the Moonlight (1926-1927, MNCARS, Madrid), for example, the fish that follow the model of those found in Manuel Ángeles Ortiz's work, have been turned into soft fish and possess a clear phallic interpretation, which are projected from Freudian symbolism.

Regarding the production of the cubist painter see: CARMONA, EUGENIO, "Manuel Ángeles Ortizen los años del Arte Nuevo, 1918-1938", Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Madrid and Granada, National Reina Sofía Art Center, Regional government of Andalucía and Provincial government of Granada, publication supervised by Lina Davidov and Eugenio Carmona, 1996, pp. 17-44. E. C.

Signed: in the upper left hand corner of the canvas: "Ángeles Ortiz 1924".

ORIGIN

Emilio Prados Collection, Málaga-Madrid/ Antonio Boraita Collection / Julia Benito Martínez Collection, Madrid.

EXHIBITIONS

Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Madrid and Granada, National Reina Sofía Art Center, Regional government of Andalucía and Provincial government of Granada 1996.

Not catalogued. Reproduced in the invitation pamphlet that accompanied the exposition during its presentation in Granada.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davidov, Lina, "Biography", in Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Madrid and Granada, National Reina Sofía Art Center, Regional government of Andalucía and Provincial government of Granada, 1996, p. 193.

(1) Regarding the production of the cubist painter see: CARMONA, EUGENIO, "Manuel Ángeles Ortizen los años del Arte Nuevo, 1918-1938", Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Madrid and Granada, National Reina Sofía Art Center, Regional government of Andalucía and Provincial government of Granada, publication supervised by Lina Davidov and Eugenio Carmona, 1996, pp. 17-44 .

(2) ROSENTHAL, MARK, "Juan Gris, In the Open Window", Juan Gris, 1887-1927, Madrid, Ministry of Culture, publication supervised by Gary Tinterow, pp. 53-63.

(3) JOSEPH PALAU I FABRE,en Picasso. De los ballets al drama (1917-1926), the work is titled El azul del mar invade la estancia and is catalogued as nº515.

(4) Mesa con peces y objetos diversos, iniPALAU I FABRE, work cited in catalog nº 1281 .

(5) The erotic symbolism of the guitar in Picasso, suggested by many authors and openly by John RICHARSON (in collaboration with MARILYN McCULLY, A Life of Picasso, Vol. II. 1907-1914, London, Jonathan Cape, 1996) is irrefutablyachieved in Manuel Ángeles Ortiz; on this matter see: CARMONA, EUGENIO, "Manuel Ángeles Ortiz en los años del Arte Nuevo, 1918-1938" Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Madrid and Granada, National Reina Sofía Art Center, Regional government of Andalucía and Provincial government of Granada, publication supervised by Lina Davidov and Eugenio Carmona, 1996, p. 33 and note 54.