BB.AA MUSEUM. Saint Pius V, 9
Just the name, "medieval painting", ha, throw a little cap to laugh. All the non-impressionist art made at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th - years where the fascinating avant-gardes emerged (cubism, Futurisme, dadaism…)— has been sufficiently tarnished within historiography, especially in the Valencian case, with Sorolla casting its long shadow. But there were other great painters like José Belliure, Antonio Fillol, Antonio Muñoz Degrain and Joaquín Agrasot, protagonist of this exhibition with which the Consortium of Museums and the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia want to give it back the splendor it deserves. To follow the currents of his time, in line with bourgeois taste and the aesthetics of the time, the Oriolan painter was classified within the traditionalist and regionalist genre, but the exhibition you will be able to visit wants to overthrow reductionism by expanding the range, exhibiting orientalisms, (auto)portraits, landscapes, gardens, nudes and floral still lifes that draw us multifaceted. It's going to be a costumer, Yeah, but many more things. Besides, Agrasot's customs have a particularity, and it dignifies the working class by dressing it up in festive events (weddings and baptisms) and domestic chores (they breed, sewing…). He was an excellent draftsman, what can be seen in watercolors such as that of the Cardinal, that hangs next to another one by Fortuny, present in the exhibition together with other artists of the time to dialogue with Agrasot's work and help contextualize. He lived for many years and painted until the end, in fact, his last painting, unfinished, hangs from the room with an addition of his son on the sheet: “Painting this painting my father fell ill and died., the painter Agrasot, to the 82 years". The Museum of Fine Arts tells us about the success of the Valencian school of the 19th century on the international scene through the figure of Agrasot, a clear example of how the local can transcend to the international arena and triumph. AU
