The Roots of
Modern Spanish Art
Looking at the history of traditional
Spanish Painting through the work of
Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso
By : Tanya Rogish Wood
From the dawn of time, man has felt the need to create art.
Throughout the years each artist has strived to be unique and
push the boundaries of what is conceptually and aesthetically
pleasing. Traditions and cultural heritage have also played a major
role in an artists' inspiration. No matter how hard one may try to
rebel against their upbringing these traditions are still present,
subtle though they may be.
After seeing an exhibition at the Guggenheim titled, "The Roots of
Spanish Art: From El Greco to Picasso", I became conscious of
just how many of Picasso's Cubistic paintings were based on the
classic religious and iconographic forms merely because of the
way he chose to represent them. In this weeks painting class, my
goal was to attempt to re-create some of these time-honored
scenes using a realistic figurative approach but also incorporating
a modern/abstract feel to it.
Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso:
Time, Truth, & History
~ An Exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum ~
This exhibit was broken down into sections, based on various themes running through the past
five centuries of Spanish culture. It shows similarities between the art of old masters & that
of the modern era. Some people may say that this comparison between time periods and
artistic styles challenges conventional art philosophy. When viewing these paintings side
by side the viewer is able to see radical juxtapositions that cross time revealing a
fundamental understanding of the Spanish customs.
When most art historians categorize typical Spanish Art, they are normally
referring to what is known as the Golden Age, which lasted from El Greco (15411614) to Goya (1746-1828) believing that Cubism and Surrealism were too avantgarde and broke completely with Spanish traditions. In this exhibit, the connections
between Spanish art of the modern age and that of the past become apparent
through the themes each is put under (still life, landscape, portrait, etc).
Juan Sanchez Cotan – 1602 – Oil on Canvas
Still Life with Fruits & Vegetables
Juan Gris – 1916
Oil on Canvas
Still Life with Newspaper
From past to present
The Picador – Pablo Picasso - 1900
Pass with a Cape – Oil on canvas
Fransico Goya
Here is an example of a modern painting
portraying a traditional idea. We see on the
left, Goya’s representation of a bull fight and
then above Picasso’s rendition of the same
thing. In order to go forward with new ideas
we must also examine our past.
When he visited the Prado in 1865, Edouard Manet observed that the
Spanish School had made its greatest contribution of all in the field of the
portrait, which took on a distinctive naturalism in the hands of painters
such as El Greco, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Juan
Carreño de Miranda. This section of the exhibition explore the shifting
terms of portraiture over the past five centuries.
Diego
Velázquez
(1599–1660),
Francisco
Pacheco?
ca. 1619–22
Pablo
Picasso
(1881–1973)
Portrait of
Jaime
Sabartés
1939
A similar duality of psychological depth and surface affect reigned over portraiture of women in 17th
century Spain, but it was aggravated by a social sensibility that obligated women to behave with modesty
and made female portraits rare outside the heraldic context of royalty. In this moral setting the splendid
attire that a true "lady" donned in public—to demonstrate both her elevated social rank and her skill at
handling appearances with care—was always viewed with a degree of suspicion, as if social ostentation
covered over coquettishness, seduction, deceit, or libertinage. Ambivalence between introspective reserve
and decorative display became essential to Goya, who in the context of the Enlightenment, managed to
shatter conventional stereotypes by combining them in defiant individualistic portraits of duchesses and
other prominent women. In the twentieth century, even as the figure of the lady gave way to new social
roles, the old, paradoxical understanding of femininity persisted in the works of Picasso and his avantgarde colleagues, who represented women as dual sources of pleasure and peril.
Francisco De Goya
(1746–1828)
The Duchess of
Abrantes, 1816
Pablo Picasso
(1881–1973),
Portrait of
Marie-Thérese
Walter with a
Garland, 1937
(below) - El Greco (1541-1614) The Vision of Saint
John, ca. 1608–14. Oil on canvas
Pablo
Picasso
(1881–
1973)
Winter
Landscape
1950
The cultural fuel for this vision came from mysticism, which proposed an emotional
involvement with landscape through the medium of sacred lyric poetry in the 16th
century, around the time El Greco first began to treat the subject. Although this
tendency was soon curtailed, it left smoldering embers that were fanned back into a
flame centuries later by artists like Francisco de Goya, Pablo Picasso, and Joan Miró. For
Goya the agitation of his landscapes had a great deal to do with the cult of the sublime,
and Picasso's long-standing interest in El Greco led
him to bring the spirit of that artist's landscapes back to life.
Juan Pantoja de la Cruz The Infantes Don Felipe & Dona Ana
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), The
Infanta Margarita María from The Maids
of Honor (Las Meninas), after
Velázquez, 1957
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), Portrait of
Queen Mariana, ca. 1656. Oil on canvas
Salvador Dali & Surrealism
“The only thing
that the world
will not have
enough of is
exaggeration.”
- Salvador Dali -
(On Left)
Salvador Dalí in
front of his
painting The
Madonna of Port
Lligat (1950).
Under the influence of the surrealist movement, Dali's artistic style
crystalized into the disturbing blend of precise realism and dreamlike
fantasy that became his trademark. His paintings combined meticulous
draftsmanship and detail with a unique and stimulating imagination.
(Left) - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
(1617–1682),
The Virgin of the Rosary,1650–55.
Oil on canvas, 164 x 110 cm
(Right) - Salvador Dalí
(1904–1989),
Madonna of Port Lligat (first
version), 1949 Oil on canvas
Since ancient times Mediterranean culture has been saturated with matriarchal symbols. Most
important within the Spanish tradition of such imagery was the notion of the Immaculate
Conception, which during the Counter-Reformation became an official dogma of the Catholic
faith, thanks in large part to the Church in Spain. The significance grew out of anxieties
regarding the moral purity of a maiden's virginity contrasted with the love of the mother, who,
to become one, had first to be sullied. There was hardly a single Spanish painter throughout the
17th century who did not address this theme, and it became a fundamental part of artistic
heritage in the modern era. Its trace survives even in a manifestly atheist painter like Picasso, as
well as in many other 20th-century Spanish artists, most notably Salvador Dalí.
Freud & Surrealism
Dali was deeply influenced by
Sigmund Freud's writings on
the unconscious and dreams, as
well as firmly affixing himself to
the developing Surrealistic
groups in Europe during the
1930s. The French surrealists
were a group of artists and
writers led by the French poet
Andre Breton. When Dali
visited Paris for the first time,
he was introduced to the leading
surrealists in the movement, but
because of his lack of interest in
politics, he was eventually
shunned by this group.
•
Archeological Reminiscence
of Millet's Angelus - 1935
by Salvador Dali
Along with the influence of the
surrealist movement, Dali's
artistic style came together in
the disturbing blend of precise
realism and dreamlike fantasy
that became his trademark.
Metamorphosis of Narcissus – 1936-1937
20 x 20 - Salvador Dali – Oil on canvas
His paintings combined
meticulous detail with a
unique & stimulating
imagination.
The Elephants – Salvador Dali - 1948
The images he created
perplex, confound, and
intrigue the viewer.
Dali prophetically reveals
the dreams, fears, hopes
and frustrations of
modern man, and has
succeeded in expressing
the nostalgia, the terror,
the poetry, and the
confusion of our times.
Dali lived in the United States
during the 1940s and early '50s,
and developed his extravagant
and eccentric public persona
during this time. He returned to
Spain in 1955, and lived an
increasingly reclusive life until his
death in 1989.
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – 1946
Salvador
Dali – Oil on Canvas – 89.7cm x 119.5cm
The Sacrament of the Last Supper – Salvador Dali -
Christus
HypercubusCorpus
Hypercubus
Salvador Dali
Christ of Saint John on the Cross –
Salvador Dali - 1951
Process
• Students learned about the History of Spanish Art through this
power point presentation, a video shown on Salvador Dali, and
by browsing through this exhibit on the Guggenheim website.
• We discussed Vanitas painting and some similarities found in
Spanish Art.
• Students divided their paper into a minimum of 10 sections,
then spread out through the classroom to draw the still life in
front of them. They were expected to use a variety of vantage
points from looking up at the still life from the floor to looking
down on the still life from above by sitting in a chair on top of
the table.
• Students were encouraged to use realistic drawing techniques
such as Dali would have used but to abstract their colors from
the norm as Picasso may have done.
• Students changed vantage points every 20 minutes or so.
Other Ideas
• While at the NAEA conference last year, I
took a drywall relief workshop. This
medium would be another great way to
teach this lesson. The fresco process
could be pulled in and the drywall relief
could be the finished project or it could be
used as a print making plate.
• There are so many possiblities
here..ceramics, painting, drywall relief,
drawn still life’s etc.
I planned out a series of paintings that would encompass Christ's
life from conception to resurrection/ascension into heaven. On my
first attempt, I drew my figures very realistically and thought that
the colors and textures of the paint would give it the modern feel
that I thought it needed. Upon completion of this painting, I
realized that it did not have the look I was intending. It had a Van
Gogh/Impressionistic feel to it due to the colors & textures used.
I was introduced to Aboriginal and Asmat Art which allowed my
figures to emerge from the Asmat sculptural influence and the
background was influenced by the Aboriginal dot work. I think the
India Ink tied the styles together and also gives it a more
contemporary feel. I believe that I successfully conquered my
problem and have developed a style that I can pursue further.
Immaculate Conception 1
By:Tanya Rogish Wood
This painting has the realistic figurative
qualities of Dali while the bold colors
and Impressionistic mark making and
lack of facial features gives it a more
abstract feel.
Immaculate Conception 2
By: Tanya Rogish Wood
This painting has a more Cubistic
figurative approach which was inspired by
African Asmat Art and the background
was inspired by Aboriginal Dot work.
Links & Other Resources
• http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.a
sp?exhibit=75840 (Student Work)
• http://www.guggenheim.org/picasso/
(Spanish Painting from El Greco to
Picasso: Time, Truth, and History –
through March 28, 2007)