Julio Romero de Torres He is now where his work and its impact deserve: among the greats of 20th century figurative painting in the world. He is through one of his best-known works, ‘The Little Piconera’which since this Monday, … and for several weeks, it is exhibited at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The City Council of Córdoba has given it as part of the programming of the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth and as the opening of the events that will fill the city especially starting in the fall. The work was dressed in full dress this Monday in the room where it will share space with painters from the same period, such as the American Edward Hopper.
It has been placed in room 45, which corresponds to the realistic painting of the period of interwarsto which Romero de Torres belongs, and can be seen there until July 28.
The artistic director of Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Guillermo Solana, highlighted the “popularity” of the painter and how he created Spanish icons in the 20th century, but that also brought with it a certain distortion in the way he was perceived. «He was reduced to folklorebut now it is seen in the context of Art History,” he said.
In his words he related Romero de Torres to Leonardo da Vinci, to the point that ‘La Chiquita Piconera’, for him, has something of “Gioconda without a smile, a dramatic, serious Mona Lisa, because it recreates from symbolism that troubled, slightly cursed eroticism.” The poet Manuel Machado, a friend of the artist, had already linked him with the Italian artist.
That is why he is with his contemporaries, Europeans and the rest of the world, but he also insisted on seeing certain connections with the surrealism«with Buñuel and with Dali». That is why when in two years there is a large exhibition about the painter from Figueras, the Cordoba native will be present, according to what he said.
The manager of the cultural center, Evelio Acevedoassured that the proposal to receive the work “impacted” them and insisted that the arrival of the painting places Julio Romero de Torres “in his time” and as a testimony of an entire era in the history of art.
The artistic director of the Thyssen Museum spoke of ‘La Chiquita Piconera’ as “a Mona Lisa without a smile”
The mayor of Córdoba, José María Bellido, recalled that the work is “the artistic testament” of Romero de Torres and that is why it is symbolic that the events of the 150th anniversary of his birth begin with him. “He conveys the message of what he wanted to express in the painting, in a portrait that is full of maturity, depth and mystery,” he said.
From it the fundamental purpose of the anniversary“which is to offer a renewed vision of the work of Romero de Torres, which distances him from the clichés that have accompanied him and that highlights the traits of modernity that made him a reference painter in his time.”
The local was an inspiration, but his world is “more deep and more extensive than what has been intended to be established. Breaking the cliché is the fundamental objective of this quote.
