UNTIL SUNDAY 12/10
Mubav. Saint Pius V, 9
The brains of the apostle Santiago are scattered on the ground because a spontaneous man has opened his head with a fuller's pole. Pedro Orrente painted the dramatic violence of this scene with great crudeness., without sparing the viewer viscera. But the Murcian artist also knew how to give sensuality and vitality to characters such as San Sebastián in the Cathedral of Valencia.. Restored for the occasion, He seems more like a hedonistic Hercules than a saint of the sober Hispanic religious tradition.. His martyrdom is one of the great altar paintings that can be seen in the monographic exhibition – the first – dedicated to this itinerant painter who ended up making a career in Valencia in the final stage of his life.. The other is The miracle of Saint Leocadia of the Cathedral of Toledo and had not been exhibited for more than fifty years. These two altar paintings are, according to the curator of the exhibition, Jose Redondo, the most important pieces of his production and two of the masterpieces of Spanish painting from the Golden Age.
Orrente has had problems being recognized as he deserves for belonging to a generation of nobody who navigated between two waters: mannerism and baroque. It was once praised for its medium-sized biblical scenes and its hyper-realistic depiction of animals., but today's experts say that his mastery went much further: He created complex monumental compositions such as Miracle of Saint Leocadia what we mentioned before. He was also a pioneer in the Venetian-influenced landscape genre., little cultivated in Spain at that time; and stood out as a painter of night scenes and as a draftsman. The exhibition PEDRO ORANTE. A traveling artist in Spain during the Golden Age brings together a handful of nocturnes and a selection of drawings from the National Library, among which stands out David with the head of Goliath, which is exhibited next to the final painting so that we can appreciate the technique and way of working of the artist.
El Greco contemporary, Velázquez or Zurbarán, Orrente contributed to defining Valencian painting in the mid-17th century, alongside great masters of the land like Francisco Ribalta, José de Ribera o Jerônimo Jacinto de Espinosa. Despite directing one of the largest workshops of the Spanish Baroque, His work has not reached the general public., among other things, because he was an itinerant painter who put his eggs in more than one basket. The last of them: Valencia, where he laid the foundations of the Baroque in the area. S.M.
