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SPANISH MODERN PAINTING.
ARTISTS FROM SPAIN
(Examples)
MERELLO
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ART OF SPAIN. ARTISTS PAINTINGS.-
Mujer pensativa.
Mix media on paper
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Art of Spain. Modern Spanish Painting-Painters
(81 x 100 cm) Mixed Media on Canvas
ART OF SPAIN. ARTISTS
PAINTINGS.- Fantasía mediterránea con veleros (97 x 130 cm) Mix media on canvas
SPAIN ART. Yeloow flowers.
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ART OF SPAIN. ARTISTS PAINTINGS.-
Niño con cántaro.
(40 x 30 cm)
Mix media on wood
ART OF SPAIN. ARTISTS PAINTINGS.-
Rostro.
(40 x 30 cm)
Mix media on wood
Instant.
(40 x 30 cm)
Mix media on wood
MERELLO.-SPAIN ART.
MERELLO.-SPAIN ART.
Red and Mauve Still Life
(92 x 73 cm)
Mix media on canvas
José Manuel Merello
Art of Spain, Artists. Spanish Painting.-
Red Still Life with Jar
Mix media on canvas
Art in Spain Artists. Spanish Painting.-
Some Flowers
(130 x 81 cm)
Mix media on canvas
Sancho Panza and Don Quijote.
Oil
Spanish Guitar
Smoker
(29 x 21 cm)
Sitting Nude
Art in Spain Artists. Spanish Painting.-
Sketch for Starts Girl
(92 x 73 cm)
Art of Spain Artists. Spanish Painting.-
Blue Fantasy to Zons
(114 x 146 cm)
Mix media on canvas
ART PAINTINGS, MODERN STILL LIFES.
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© José Manuel Merello Arvilla
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ART SPAIN ARTISTS. PAINTING. ART OF SPAIN. SPANISH PAINTING ART.
Thoughts about art and painting.
"Abstract Painting and Surrealist Painting, apart from being essential and marvelous in themselves, these days also fulfill an invaluable pedagogical function for any artist. The have now become part of Classical Art and are the Artistic Heritage for Spiritual Learning and Artistic technique. They are like gymnastics for the unaware and for the eye, providing places where almost all feelings and spiritual emotions can be hatched to finally lead to build this immeasurable and grandiose thing we call THE ART of PAINTING." © José Manuel Merello
"A good drawing cannot in any way be unfavorably compared with a good
painting. It is more, beneath every picture is an essential underlying
drawing that sustains it, a skeleton that mobilizes it and gives it form.
Any painting lacking of this base crumbles and appears flimsy." © José
Manuel Merello
" The drawing does not remain defined by the line, not even the painting
remains defined by the color. The painting is still saved, and this is
partly what currently defines it, of being able to be assimilated and
comprising in a monitor or a photo. On the other hand the drawing does
really is asimilable by these means. Leaving aside fetishisms, it does not
matter to me to have an original drawing or a photo or an identical poster
of him. It is the same thing and the drawing can be enjoyed identically, as
it happens despite of reading a good book in different editions, or seeing
the same photo revealed for the second or tenth time. When it is not in game
neither the fetishism nor the plasticity, all these supports take us to the
nobility - or misery - of the work. But in painting the plasticity is always
in game, the plasticity, the morbidity, the opaqueness or the transparence,
the brilliant or dull surface... qualities that are impossible to be
transmitted by means of a monitor of computer, a TV or a poster. The digital
technique, far from ruining the arts, it only does to demonstrate the
singularities of these other techniques, and the painting gains the garland
due to currently it is impossible to enjoy completely The Meninas in an
image, impossible to feel the powerful sensation of gap of the stay where
Velázquez does, impossibly to perceive the pearly rind of the pictorial
layer of the picture, useless to turned oneself and to see sideway to be
able to feel the delicate nodes and stretch marks of the painting of the
genius. And let's not say anything about pictures of Tàpies, or of Lucian
Freud, or of Jasper Johns... The color and the disposition of the forms can
suggest us very much, of course, but they remain far away, they are not
enough to express the plasticity of the picture. This is the Painting." ©
José Manuel Merello
" In painting and in drawing, technically speaking, things can be wrong done
if they do not know how to make them correctly, but the bad made things must
be "perfectly wrong made". This way the result will always be good. "
(summer 2004) © José Manuel Merello
"Art History is the emotional and spiritual History of humankind. It is a
remembering of its most sublime feelings materialized in works of art that
transcend time. Altamira and Lascaux are primitive examples of this human
desire of expressing its emotions. In my opinion, there is not any artistic
era superior to another one in its initial impetus to create a material
proof of an emotion or a spiritual pleasure. On the other hand, I believe
there have been art eras superior to others since the human being has
improved its technique. In the same way that scientific progress always goes
up, artistic progress, which needs technology to advance, evolves with an
increasing trend. However, this evolution is not continuous, since it
depends on two factors: technique and spiritual emotion. Art is not just a
feeling. Art is the feeling being materialized, incarnated, sculpted,
written with skill and technique. The cavemen had only a few tools at their
reach; consequently their art is more primitive than Baroque Art, to give an
example. The problem lies in the fact that technique and emotion do not
always move along parallel lines. As a result, we can sometimes find art
periods with a greater and purer emotional and spiritual impulse, even
though they relied on inferior technique. On the other hand, we sometimes
can find other periods with better means, in which the art is weaker due to
the human soul was soured, repressed, or manipulated. When the human spirit
undergoes a sublime and free period, accompanied by a superior technique,
then we will refer to this period as a Golden Art Age." © José Manuel
Merello
"Nowadays, Modern Art exudes a breath of fresh air and freedom never before
imaginable. Up till now, Art History has never had such an array of possible
techniques for artists to choose from or such a variety of artistic
languages for artists to fully express themselves. All the different Art
schools and tendencies, favoritisms aside (even though they have always been
there), enjoy a great open field that promises fabulous creations in the
coming years.
Surrealism, which was born in the 20th century as a perfectly defined art
movement, is nowadays a tendency impacted by Expressionism, Figuratism,
Abstract and many other schools of Art, which enrich Surrealism without
diluting it and enlarge Surrealism without voiding it. I opine that the
borders in art tend to vanish. It is still very complex to reflect upon this
phenomenon since we find ourselves currently in this Art multimovement
searching for the "one Art". But beware; never should it be an imposition or
an absolute movement. Art is free by nature and it will always slip away,
like water through our fingers, from the premonitions and the horizons that
we try to impose on it." © José Manuel Merello
“I plead for humility in painting. Painting does not need so much fanfare or
intellectual pretension. It must come from a person’s clean soul, from the
clear and pure eye of the painter, even if only a simple apple is being
painted. It is for this reason that I admire Morandi so much.” © José Manuel
Merello
"I detest a large part of the minimalism that is practiced today across all
the arts. I'm afraid that within this alleged synthesis there is an excess
of rubbish and uselessness floating around that serves only to confuse the
audience, which sometimes may be ignorant but blameless, although, more
frequently, intolerably pedantic, void of any understanding or knowledge."
© José Manuel Merello
“A frame to a good painting is like a dress to a beautiful naked woman. It
is not essential but serves to celebrate and give charm to the work.” © José
Manuel Merello
"Spanish painting has, throughout the centuries, maintained a serene and
melancholic regard: tragic but never violent. There is no such thing as
violent Spanish painting. Even the most ferocious Goya or the most
horrifying Picasso never lose the composure and class inherent in the
brushwork." © José Manuel Merello
"Everybody asks themselves what art is. I think that art is any human
creation that is able to lift the spirit to a higher plain of emotion and
wonderment." © José Manuel Merello
"The Expressionist Painters, The Surrealistic ones, The Contemporary
Painters in general ... and The Ancients, Figurative Painters, Abstracts,
Realistics, Pop, The Greatest Painters, The Unknown ones, The Famous ones,
The Genial Artists and The Artists without Genius... The Draftsmen of Comic,
The Digital ones, Arrogants, Simples, Mad Painters, Rich ones, Poor
Painters. It does not matter for me from where are they, Chinese or Spanish
Painters; I like All the Painters around the World, I am interested in the
whole painting; a simple vase, an anonymous portrait, a pretentious picture,
a stupid picture, a brilliant painting: They all are Painters, All is
Painting" © José Manuel Merello
"Horses and children. Fat women, beautiful women and old ladies. The
magicians and poets. Dogs and cats sleeping. Bulls and Spanish bullfighters.
The processions of Seville and Malaga. The crucified Christs filled with
blood and prayers. The saints. A Virgin for each village. The sun and the
rain of Biscay. The sea, the passion, love and art of the Mediterranean.
Painting and older architecture. And the most modern. The dances and dances
of the villages lost. Literature issued by the Spanish world. Deep red,
purple, black and olive. The balance between the sun, moon and stars: this
is the Spanish art. " ©José Manuel Merello
Art and the economical crisis
Art, as any commercial product, is noticing the same or more, since it is
not an essential item, the consequences of the current economic situation.
However, as in all times of change and redirection of political, economic
and social paradigms, art can come out, enriched and even strengthened, of a
situation like this.
In the Art world, particularly in the interpretation, actors and actresses
tell that certain levels of anxiety and stress are able to awake in them the
ability to concentrate and a transmission talent which they do not have in
normal situations. And, what is the present time but a continuous state of
turmoil and excitement? The art has been, fortunately or unfortunately,
nurtured by many or all of the major episodes of human seizure; signs of
this are the Picasso's Guernica or the Fusilamientos del 2 de Mayo from
Goya.
Would then be currently expected to flourish great works of art or even a
new art movement? Movement that could result in two very different topics,
one that would focus on criticism and look to the past aiming on the events
and behaviors that have led us to the current economic crisis, and another
that would extoll all that nourishes and gives the human a second
opportunity to reorient their economic, social and political processes, as
intelligence and generosity. ©P.M. Giménez
" I am not an avant-garde artist. My art is contemporary, literally
speaking: a product of its time. Vanguard, on the contrary, represents the
most modern innovations – neither better nor worse; like the sharp point of
a spear which opens up new paths. However, that sharp point needs all the
power and weight of the rest of the spear, the weight of Art History.
Without all this History, there is no push to open up new ways. Vanguard Art
represents freshness, novelty, surprise, the truth and the fake. A risky and
fascinating bet. However, what interests me is to draw from the classic and
contemporary traditions, deepen into the walked path, and remain vigilant –
like many other artists – to provide vanguard artists a solid foundation.
Much in the same way as an older brother holds his youngest brother’s hand
with fascination, as the intrepid child peeks, with wonderful daring and
without fear, into the abyss. I need to keep ane of us has his role, and
mine, nowadays, is not in the vanguard." © José Manuel Merello
"ABOUT JOAQUÍN SOROLLLA".: Today it does not seem to be too modern
speaking about Joaquín Sorolla, the great Valencian painter. But I always
have refused to see in him an antiquated, impressionistic painter, luminous
and little else more. Otherwise, Sorolla is one of the big ones, a titan, a
Colossus of the painting. He maybe couldn’t be compared neither to a
Velázquez nor to a Picasso, it would be very daring, but yes I see him at a
height of a Cezanne or a Manet. Well, it is true that the work of the
Valencian one is very unequal in quality and is paying for decades for this
discontinuity in such way that only very few people can rescue between his
painting those linens which catapult him towards the Olympus: Sorolla's
white linens." © José Manuel Merello
"How will be the art in 2011 and in the near future? Freedom defines
contemporary art. International art fairs are fun and intriguing, are
challenges for thought and human emotion. Walking through a contemporary art
fair like ARCO in Madrid, is now a mental release. You may think that what
we are seeing is not "art", you may think that some artistic creations are
not moral and then deduce that they are not art. But you are wrong. The art
does not ever depend on morality. Any work of art owes nothing to any form
of thought or ideology. The human spirit is free. Art is free. The art is
beyond good and evil. What is necessary is to prevent some forms of art that
are violent, dangerous, dictatorial. We can not allow them because we need
rules for coexistence or because it is ethically unacceptable. For example,
we can turn the Amazon into a garden empty, naked, with only a tree. Sure
could be a work of conceptual art, but it would be really stupid. The
savagery and brutality can be handled with great skill. It would not be
moral, it might be art, but should not be allowed.
Another common mistake for many visitors to ARCO is to think that there can
be only paint. No. The painting is a very important part of art, but only a
part. Many artists complain that there is very little paint on the
contemporary art fairs. They have a point, perhaps the art galleries with
paintings should be more exposed there. Modern painting or classical
paintings are wonderful, a highly evolved form of art ... but Art does not
need paintings for being Art. Of course, many current creations are just
ephemeral art, art to think and meditate during a few minutes. And now
that's a very interesting difference." ©José Manuel Merello
Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart and Marilyn. Matches.
"More nonsense. Now it's up to Van Gogh. Just a new book that speculates
about his last days of life, whether he committed suicide or was
accidentally killed.
I don’t have read the book, but I have read some notes like one where
someone asks Vincent, who was bleeding in his bed, if he had wanted to
commit suicide and he said “I think so”. And for some persons this is a
enough reason to write a book because this answer might indicate that he did
not pull the trigger.
This nonsense, and others cited in the book, justifies, without shame, to
raise a new plot that will surely give a lot of money, because it is likely
to be after converted into a film. Tangle and dig no matter what it takes,
without the least respect in the life of someone who gave everything for
nothing. It's disgusting this hobby to create a hieroglyph which gives
morbid fascination and money for a long time. It seems to me outrageous
disrespect to the generous genius.
This is the same with Leonardo's Mona Lisa. Come and see what we invented
now or what we can discover in the hackneyed, heavy and nothing enigmatic
smile of Donna. Hey, look, I think this hair of his hair is like a cross of
a rare sect and this union of points that I see is the trail of a powerful
secret means that Leonardo knew, even then, the existence of neutrinos. And
on and on, nonsense after another, no matter if the Mona Lisa is a mediocre
picture (beyond the use of "sfumato" as innovation), mediocre, yes, in its
historical context and others it can have a bit interest but plastically is
not too good. Never mind. They have already managed to become it an icon
based in chatter and nonsense, and then it begins to have an interest, quite
apart from its true quality. As the image of Marilyn in pop art. Nothing
more. Poor Marilyn, how many people are still profiting from his image and
his death. I am convinced Da Vinci would be saddened about all these
matters.
Or Mozart. He and his death. Salieri and Mozart enmeshed in a tangle mesh
tarnishing forever the image of the great man, making him look like drivel,
like a clown in the, otherwise extraordinary, film of Milos Forman's,
"Amadeus". It is always the same: to make art or intrigue whatever it costs.
I always say that art does not know morality but that does not entitle us to
crucify dogs or to make intrigues and cabals on humans who only made to
magnify our spirit giving it all they've got.
I am very sad about people do not stop to remove the ears, bones, misery and
privacy of these martyrs of art.
Please, leave them all alone."
©José Manuel Merello
"…being a painter, a writer, a sculptor or a musician does not put one at a
higher rank than any other profession. There are a lot of professions that,
when carried out to the extreme, without a doubt achieve a higher level than
that of the majority of artists. For instance, a wonderful craftsman, a
maker of Manila shawls, can go further than a mediocre sculptor; the work
can be superior. Or a great soccer player can raise greater passion than
most of us, painters. To be an “artist” does not guarantee anything.
However, sometimes a genius is born in a way that distinguishes the great
arts, along with science, philosophy or politics, from any other endeavor.
We cannot compare Michael Angelo’s Sistine Chapel or Newton’s Law of
Gravitation with the most amazing soccer goal. Art with capital letters is
easy to detect; its light continues to shine through time.” ©José Manuel
Merello eye on the Avant-garde
Movement because it keeps me young as artist, it cleanses me, it clears up
my spirit, so that my view doesn’t sour. I am a part of the body of the
spear and, from that vantage point, I observe with fascination the young art
sharp poking at the same time that I draw from the magnificent work of the
masters of all times, the powerful legacy that sustains us. I am not part of
the sparkles – sometimes ephemeral – of the spearhead. Each on
ART 21. ART NEWS. CURRENT ART PAINTING FROM SPAIN. Art of Spain. Modern Spanish Painting-Painters. Expressionist Artists, Expressionism.