From Romanticism to Modernism in the BBVA Collection

This show takes a chronological walkthrough of nineteenth-century painting, mostly Spanish, until arriving to the dawn of Modernism with the changeover to the new century.

The rise of Romanticism in the early nineteenth century paved the way for the success of genre scene painters, like Jean-Baptiste Achille Zo and Eugenio Lucas Velázquez, who were instrumental in popularising a stereotyped and picturesque vision of Spain. At the same time, landscape painting laid greater emphasis on a faithful interpretation of nature and panoramic vistas, in which Pablo Gonzalvo excelled, garnered particular favour.

Over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century the so-called précieux style of painting gained traction among artists like Anselmo Guinea or indeed the young Joaquín Sorolla. This typology was also driven by an evident fascination for the exoticism of the Orient, as exemplified in paintings by José Villegas and Ricardo de Madrazo. At once, the landscape genre underwent a process of evolution, led by Carlos de Haes, who espoused direct contact with and a study of nature in all seasons, a lesson soon assimilated by, among others, Ramón Martí i Alsina and Segundo Matilla i Marina.

The painting straddling the nineteenth and twentieth century, often known as fin de siècle, is represented in this exhibition by a number of different tendencies that developed simultaneously and which, taken together, speak of the assimilation of new visual languages that led to the advent of modern art. First of all, one can see examples of fin de siècle portraits made by such outstanding artists as Raimundo de Madrazo or Joaquín Sorolla, then followed by the influential luminist painting of Eliseu Meifrèn and Salvador Martínez Cubells before concluding with the exaltation of regional themes, an endeavour to forge a national identity, with artists like Valentín de Zubiaurre or Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, among others.

The connection with the European art scene was crucial in this process of renewal, as one can readily evince in the symbolist aesthetic of the landscapes by Santiago Rusiñol or Nicolás Raurich, as well as in the interest in capturing instantaneity which one can observe in the scenes of everyday life by Ramón Casas and Ramón Pichot. In this context, landscape was perhaps the genre that afforded the greatest potential for experimentation to painters of the stature of Darío de Regoyos, Joaquim Mir and Daniel Vázquez Díaz, the last-named artist also noted for his personal take on
. The show is brought to a close with a selection of works by artists who, thanks to their contact with international avant-garde movements, played a critical role in shaping modern art in Spain: Francisco Iturrino, Aurelio Arteta and Ignacio Zuloaga.