BB.AA MUSEUM. Saint Pius V, 9
To the passeig de l'Albereda, in front of the European University of Valencia, in the shade of a rubber tree, the public monument to Doctor Moliner stands proudly. It is the work of one of the most outstanding artists of the Spanish sculptural renewal carried out in the first decades of the 20th century, José Capuz. Son of a family of sculptors of Italian origin established in Valencia since the 17th century, would meet Rodin, Bourdelle and Bartholomew in Paris, he would make reliefs for the house of his friend Joaquín Sorolla and participate in the most important national and international exhibitions of the moment. Sand at the end of the 19th century Spanish painting had its moment of splendor, during the first decades of the 20th century, it was sculpture that acquired greater importance. At this time two trends coexist in European sculpture. On the one hand, a breakaway tendency with the canons of representation that will translate into the series of -isms known as historical vanguards. For another, the de Capuz, the renewal of the figurative tradition in forms of expression and content that move away from the academic model and realism, modern classicism as a reaction to the naturalistic realism prevailing in the artistic scene. The Consortium of Museums displays in this exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts the figurative sculpture attributed to the modern classicism practiced by Capuz, always looking with eyes to Michelangelo to break with the previous naturalistic realism that had been headed in Spain by another Valencian, Mariano Benlliure. The exhibition brings together approx 40 sculptures, so many other photographs and 16 drawings that review the various techniques and themes in Capuz's work, who worked in different materials such as marble or wood, on going to practice direct carving, in addition to terracotta, algepas, bronze. AU
