{"id":1026,"date":"2014-10-08T14:13:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2014-10-08T14:16:12","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:16:12","slug":"abello-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/2014\/10\/08\/abello-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Abell\u00f3 Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Francis Bacon. Two Studies for a Portrait of Peter Beard.
\u00a9 The Estate of Francis Bacon\/VEGAP, Madrid, 2014Bacon\/VEGAP, Madrid, 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

Juan Abell\u00f3 and his wife Ana\u00a0<\/strong>Gamazo paint an exceptionally revealing picture of themselves through the works that comprise this collection, which can be viewed at\u00a0CentroCentro Cibeles<\/a>\u00a0until 1 March.<\/p>\n

If I had to choose three words to sum up the spirit of this exhibition, they would be coherence, recovery <\/strong>and\u00a0intimacy<\/strong>. \u201cCoherence\u201d, because even though many works of differing origins are brought together \u2013 particularly noteworthy are those belonging to the 17th<\/sup> century Spanish school <\/strong>and the 20th<\/sup> century avant-garde \u2013 the collection as a whole acquires a great degree of unity, seen in everything from the late medieval panel paintings to Bacon’s work. \u201cRecovery\u201d, because the collectors have chased down pieces that had been removed from the country, which now form part of Spain’s historic heritage, such as the panel painting Salvator Mundi entre San Pedro y San Juan<\/em>\u00a0(Salvator Mundi between Saint Peter and Saint John) by Y\u00e1\u00f1ez de la Almedina and\u00a0El joven<\/em>\u00a0gallero<\/em>\u00a0(The Young Fighting Cock Trainer) by Murillo. And \u201cintimacy\u201d, because drawing is a discipline best enjoyed at short distances, which is given a starring role in the exhibition thanks to the \u00c1lbum Alcubierre<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0which gathers together works by Alonso Cano and Vald\u00e9s Leal.<\/p>\n

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Francisco de Zurbar\u00e1n: La familia de la Virgen (The Family of the Virgin)
\/ Fernando Y\u00e1\u00f1ez de la Almedina: Salvator Mundi entre San Pedro y San Juan (Salvator Mundi between Saint Peter and Saint John).<\/p><\/div>\n

At the beginning of the exhibition there is a room devoted to Madrid<\/strong>\u00a0which will be of particular interest to those who have visited the city on more than one occasion. Although some of the buildings portrayed in these paintings and drawings have unfortunately disappeared or been profoundly altered, other scenes are still perfectly recognisable. In these works the vividness and realism depicted in small details such as a picnic or a bullfight catch the viewer’s eye.<\/p>\n

We are then presented with a more or less linear narrative of the history of painting distributed across two rooms, one at the beginning of the exhibition and another right before the entrance to the last section. These two rooms are like a hinge that draws together very disparate works, such as a portrait by Joris van der Straeten and another by Juan Gris as well as a still life by Benjam\u00edn Palencia and another by Tom\u00e1s Yepes (the latter of which is one of my favourites due to its extraordinarily detailed depiction of some birds). Even so, in regard to the finds unearthed by the exhibition’s curators, Felipe Gar\u00edn and Almudena Ros de Barbero, I would mainly highlight the subtle recognition of Spanish artists in the international context. For example, the works of Ram\u00f3n Casas and Rusi\u00f1ol are displayed alongside pieces by the grand masters of Impressionism <\/strong>and\u00a0Post-Impressionism<\/strong> like Degas and Van Gogh, which are rather scarce in our public collections. And T\u00e0pies and Mir\u00f3 act as an anteroom to the spectacular triptych by Bacon<\/strong>\u00a0housed in the last of the exhibition’s rooms, which loops back via the hall to the first work displayed in the exhibition, San Francisco<\/em>\u00a0(Saint Francis) by\u00a0El Greco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Giovanni Antonio Canal, Canaletto. The Molo of Venice close to St. Mark\u2019s Square<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to providing a clear picture of the evolution of Spanish and European painting with special attention paid to drawing, the exhibition brings together an important collection of outstanding pieces. Many visitors will stop to take note of La educaci\u00f3n de la Virgen<\/em>\u00a0(The Education of the Virgin), which was initially attributed to Vel\u00e1zquez but is now considered to be the work of Zurbar\u00e1n<\/strong> and whose harmonious composition results from the placid balance between the dimensions of the figures portrayed, or of El olfato<\/em>\u00a0(Allegory of Smell) by Ribera<\/strong>, an evocative exercise in synaesthesia that lies somewhere between a still life, an allegory and a portrait, and just about sums up all of the major questions that painting has sought to answer over the centuries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Abell\u00f3 and his wife Ana\u00a0Gamazo paint an exceptionally revealing picture of themselves through the works that comprise this collection, which can be viewed at\u00a0CentroCentro Cibeles\u00a0until 1 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[37,171,25,42,65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.esmadrid.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}