Gonzalo Chillida Juantegui

(San Sebastian, 1926 – 2008)

Sands

1991

oil on canvas

50 x 61 cm

Inv. no. 10174

BBVA Collection Spain



Gonzalo Chillida is considered to be one of the foremost landscape painters of the second half of the twentieth century in Spain. His delicate way of painting and his personal vision of nature in the Basque Country played a key role in the renewal of visual arts in Spain.

His first steps as an artist—influenced by his period of training in Madrid and his sojourn in Paris—are defined by a geometrization of elements, something we can readily appreciate in his 1950s works. In them one can discern a tendency towards a reduction of forms, reminiscent of many important artists of the time, like Daniel Vázquez Díaz (1882-1969) or Pablo Palazuelo (1915-2007), whose influence is notable in these early pieces. That said, his return to San Sebastian and rediscovery of the local wet and rainy seaside environment somehow mellowed his scenes. In consequence, from the 1960s onwards, Chillida focused his attention on a poetics of sea and sky, constantly looking for the place where they meet and blend, erasing the boundaries between the earthly and the intangible. As a result, his painting became more detached from naturalist references and, through the application of delicate glazes, entered into a
of romantic inspiration not far removed from the dense and foggy horizons of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840).

Painted in 1991, this sand is an evident example of the refinement Chillida achieved in his work in the 1990s. His style of painting, by then totally defined, is predicated on an extremely subtle use of colour, with a predominance of ochre, bluish and silvery tones that the painter applies with sublime meticulousness. He makes the most of the essence of the landscape unfolding before his eyes, superimposing highly diluted layers of oil paint to capture the variations of light on the surface of the water. In this work, the sea, sand and mist merge in a pure thoughtful abstraction that aspires to outline a metaphysical space which will induce a sense of introspection in the beholder.