ExhibitionCurator: Juan Carlos Rubio Aragonés. Layout of works: Juan Pedro Gaspar.
CatalogLa Pintura Española de la Era Industrial 1800-1900 Texts by: Juan Carlos Rubio Aragonés, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Enrique Arias Anglés, Javier Barón Thaidigsmann and Gonzalo Garcival. Spanish 255 Pages ISBN: 84-89043-10-8 Price: 4.000 pesetas Sold out |
SPANISH PAINTING
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versión en español
Spanish Painting in the Industrial Age 1800-1900
This exhibition includes more than 40 unique works painted in the 19th century by some of the most important Spanish artists. The paintings, from both private and public collections, were selected by the curator Juan Carlos Rubio Aragonés. The restauration of a large number of works, the majority of them unknown to the general public, was made possible thanks to the support of the Foundation.
The railway and iron bridges, steamships and the first water mains, fluvial and maritime ports, smoking factories, small businesses, interiors of bodegas and pickling factories as well as technological inventions such as the submarine or the dirigible were all subjects which the romantic and realist artists undertook with considerable interest and which ultimately changed the way they painted. However they also painted the other side of the coin: the riots, the work-related accidents, the industrial catastrosphies, the labour conditions of women and children, etc...
The exhibition includes original oil paintings by Mariano Sánchez, Domingo Gallego, Gabriel Planella, Pérez Villaamil, Antonio de Brugada, Eugenio Lucas, Fortuny, Fedriani, Regoyos, Martínez Abades, Alpériz, Arteta, Larroque, Tellaeche, García Asarta, Uría, Pla, Zuloaga, Sorolla and Vázquez Díaz as well as other painters, perhaps less well known to the general public, whose work has been recuperated for this occasion. All the works are representative of the relationship between 19th century painting and what is known as the industrial revolution.
The exhibition considers the importance of understanding the evolution of Spanish painting starting with the end of the 1700s, in order to survey, with the progressive speed which the steam engine and then electricity has allowed, the changes produced in Spanish society right up until the resulting irruption of the vanguard at the beginning of this century.
From May 13 to July 25, 1998 in the Temporary Halls of the Art and Technology Foundation.
| The 1800s was a century of paramount importance in Spain's political, social, ecomonic and cultural history. The material and spiritual changes introduced into Spanish life were momentous. We could say that the artistic development of many Spanish regions was iniciated in the 19th century and that especially in the case of painting, even reached a high level. However only when industrialization started to affect the land on which they lived and to populate its cities did the sumptuary appear. This was the time of trains but it was also the time when museums and artists developed the fine arts system which continues today, one which was once and for all liberated from the monarchic and ecclesiastical powers which had exercized control over it since the Middle Ages. The rise of a new class of patrons and collectors as a consequence of the birth of the banks and great modern industrial powers coincided with the first theories of art for art's sake, the appearance of exhibitions, galleries, dealers, critics and a new public ready to share the experience of beauty in a modern sense of the word.
The exhibition presents significant examples which help in the understanding of the evolution of Spanish painting. First rate pictorial representations of railways, steamships, gas lighting, water mains, telegraph or telephone wires, textile industries and iron suspension bridges.... but also mock naval battles - halfway between the exaltation of patriotic sentiment and pure spectacle for the masses - scenes of work and of social unrest, votive pictures commemorating accidents. By combining the work of important artists together with that of lesser known painters, some of whose work has been restaured especially for this occasion, we hope to show how the subject of industrialization enjoyed an authentic prestige among many artists, whether they interpreted it through documentary illustrations or through expressions tinged by a pessimistic lyricism on some occasions and an exalted euphoria on others. The process that populated the Spanish landscape with gargantuan manifestations of industry was greeted by a whole range of artistic reactions, some of rejection in search of comfort in a bucolic past, others of escape into a melancholic refuge in search of simple and humble folk living an intimate relationship with a pastoral surrounding uncorrupted by the advances of civilization. All of them, nevertheless, were a reflection of their time, an artistic time which was transformed from top to bottom in the vital timetable of one century. Spanish romanticism applied its own semantic universe in the treatment of the industrial age: going from the mythological to a regional flavour, from the technical to the religious, it developed a wide catalogue of registers in order to leave its often times inspired mark as a reference point for future generations of painters. At the same time, blazing the way towards realism and the documentary through a direct observation of life, the paintings capturing local manners and customs many times touched on burning questions of society and even put forth a certain ideology connected to the values of regional sentiments. There are very few Spanish paintings which show representations of machines for their own sake - although there were, and we have included some of them in this show - as it was more commom to see work scenes where the machine is part of the scenery or cause of the accident... The originality of some painters lead them towards experiments with light and colour along the lines of the European impressionist tendencies, and these works make up the last chapter of this exhibition: the symbolism of the industrial age had achieved a sophisticated level with the perfect integration of powerful machines into the landscape, in a dense dialogue of industrial fumes and passing clouds, preparing the way so that the pictorial vanguard could come in and directly plunder the reflective metal structures of the majestic industrial constructions. The factory, omnipresent in the 19th century landscape, changed its tired steam engine - blackened and spent because of its constant use of coal and carbon minerals - for an efficient hydroelectric force that would come to dominate the panorama of energy for a large part of the 20th century. Juan Carlos Rubio Aragonés |
Click on paintings to see enlargements
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"Pounding time at the
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"The inauguration of the water supply
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"From San Fernando to Cádiz"
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"Bodega La Constancia, Jerez"
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"Accident in the port of Barcelona"
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The Painters: Mariano Sánchez (1740-1822) Paintings on Loan from the Following Institutions: Anticuario Cristobal Pío, Barcelona |
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