The exhibition covers more than a hundred pieces by artists such as Benlliure, Fillol, Pinazo, Segrelles, Renau, and Muñoz Degrain. Fundación Bancaja has brought together over a hundred pieces from 50 Valencian artists to showcase the diversity of nuances that encompassed the costumbrista drift of Valencian genre painting. This selection includes «chroniclers of their time» such as Benlliure, Fillol, Muñoz Degrain, and Joaquín Sorolla, of whom two unpublished works are exhibited.
‘Escenas y paisajes en la pintura valenciana. Siglos XIX-XX’ is a journey «full of authentic masterpieces,» with 24 of them being shown for the first time. It starts from «the most idyllic vision of the everyday to later develop a more socially focused painting,» passing through «decorativism» and «different creative attitudes.»
Themes such as «happy life in the orchard, the sea and l’Albufera, the Valencian woman, religiosity, festive life, and especially the costumbrismo of Valencian everyday life» are showcased.
This Thursday, the president of Fundación Bancaja, Rafael Alcón, and the professor Francisco Javier Pérez Rojas, curator of the exhibition, explained that visitors can explore the exhibition from this Friday until September 14.
The exhibition brings together more than 50 Valencian artists who, between 1850 and 1940, renewed the academic canons in the pictorial representation of costumbrista scenes and landscapes during that period. Artists like José Benlliure Ortiz, José Benlliure Gil, Luis Beut, Bernardo Ferrándiz, Antonio Fillol, Enrique Martínez-Cubells Ruiz, Salvador Martínez Cubells, Antonio Muñoz Degrain, José Pinazo, Ignacio Pinazo, Cecilio Pla, Josep Renau, José Segrelles, Pedro Serrano, Joaquín Sorolla, Ramón Stolz, and Julio Vila Prades are present.
The aim was to show «how great masters of the time evolved this pictorial genre,» in which Valencian painting acquired great prominence,» explained Alcón. To achieve this, 37 collections, both institutional and private, were consulted, including those of Fundación Bancaja, as well as El Prado, the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia, the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga, the València City Council, and the Diputació, among others.
«NO GENRE HAS A UNIQUE EXPRESSION»
Javier Pérez Rojas stated that «no genre has a unique expression, and here there are many nuances.» It is a very complex proposal because different lines intersect, moving from a more anecdotal costumbrista vision to a regionalist view and linking to a social discourse, which some intensify more or less according to their line of thought. There is also a more decorative, sensual interpretation, as well as a theme around work, the representation of festivities, and even sexual and erotic content, which enhances the strength and attractiveness of the painting.
Among the exhibited works is ‘El tribunal de las aguas de Valencia’ by Bernardo Ferrándiz, «the first Valencian painting to have international success at the Paris Exhibition,» which is face to face in the room with ‘El Palleter declaring war on Napoleon’ by Joaquín Sorolla. Two works by the latter are being exhibited for the first time: ‘Portrait of Mrs. Simarro dressed as a Valencian’ (1897) and ‘Sewing the sails’ (1895).
«The exhibition has a complex plot that intertwines and develops, from a more traditional line to a more modern and avant-garde one in which costumbrismo is updated,» added the curator.
In this sense, Javier Pérez Rojas emphasized that «costumbrismo is a theme, not a style, and is subject to the transformations inherent in the styles of the time.» Additionally, «Valencian painting is not isolated from the rest of the world, it relates to Spanish and European painting of the time.»
The expert explained that «costumbrista painting, at a certain moment, represented an opposition to the academic world, it is realism versus idealization, although it later leads to idealizations.» Thus, there are very diverse interpretations, and «artists who evolve more than others.»
The exhibition also includes an audiovisual with images of the Battle of Flowers of 1905, from the collections of the Valencian Film Library (Institut Valencià de Cultura). Alongside the audiovisual, some photographs of the same festivity are shown, provided by the Valencian Digital Library (Bivaldi).
The graphic chronicle that constitutes Valencian painting of the time will be included in the catalog that Fundación Bancaja will publish for the exhibition, which includes reproductions of the exhibited works along with the text elaborated by Professor Francisco Javier Pérez Rojas, delving into the historical, political, and social context of the time, as well as exploring the aesthetic and stylistic changes of Valencian plastic arts during the period from 1850 to 1940.
As part of its cultural and artistic mediation program, Fundación Bancaja also offers guided tours of the exhibition by an expert in art and cultural mediation.
FUENTE
