Wieneke Archive Book 4g : Art in Brisbane Presscuttings

TILE Golden Age of Spanish Painting represents a triumph and sadness for the Royal Academy. It's a triumph because in these days of escalatin., costs major exhibitions of this kind are becoming increasingly rare. As an indepeadent body, the Royal Academy is kicking off the year courageously: if the show Is not to be a financial drags- ter it must be visited by a quarter of a million people, or 3,000 a -lay. The sadness collies from the fact that this was an event that the late Sir Thomas Monnington, President of the Royal Academy, who died on MA- nesday before it opened was par - Ocularly proud of having achieved- the first major showing of Spanish painting for many years. Not that it has been a smooth run, The exhibition was to have been shown in a less extensive form in Paris before coming on to London but was cancelled at the last moment in protest at the execution of the six Basques. The Government here refused to give, insur- ance indemnity, which would be usual with an exhibition of this scale and this is why the Academy must attract an enormous gate to recoup costs. The exhibition deserves it : it is the first chance to see a major display of Spanish art since Goya and his Times in 1964, and ranges from El Greco and Velasquez to Zurbaran, Inherit, Murillo and lesser known painters of the 16th and 17th centuries. It includes many works which have only recently been restored or moved from obscure places and others from private collections that would usually be inaccessible to the The Golden Age for Spain was a 'time of expansion. Colonial wealth was accompanied with cultural splendour as Spain's power extended from the Amer- icas to the Kingdom of Naples. The fr El Greco's St Luke (Toledo Call Caroline Tisdall reviews the latest exhibition at the Royal Academy Spanish main stream Moors were at last expelled from Gran- ada. and at the beginning of the 10th century under Charles V Spain and the fluty Roman Empire were united. This was the Spain of Cervantes and of the mystics St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. All these threads are woven into the art of the time. The painters of Toledo, Seville. Granada and Madrid were closely dependant on the patronage of church and court. Their art reflects the extraordinary 'combination of fanatical spirituality and hard-headed expansion- ism that made the Golden Age. As painting' it is deeply mystical and dis- turbingly realist, and it is this appar- ently incompatible marriage of oppo- sites that makes Spanish painting so easily recognised. The Golden Age begins in Toledo with El Greco. and with him immedi- ately reaches a peak of mysticism that is the expression of the Counter-Refor- mation at its most intense. Toledo was second only to Rome in richness then and was only eclipsed in the 17th cen- tury when Philip III moved the royal court back to Madrid. Such moves made or broke schools of painting. Not that El Greco ever spawned a school ; his style and imag- ination were so directly the product of personal intensity that he found only one close disciple or imitator : Tristan, who the exhibition shows to have been a pale copy of the master. Yet even El Greco, surely one of the most startling `originals' in the history of art, carried with him the influence of Italy which was to linger on through. out the century. For him the important experience was Byzantine, coloured with the Venetian vision of Titian and Tintoretto. For others, like Ribera, the forming spirit was that of Carra- vaggio. The painters of Valencia had looked to Leonardo and Italian Mannerism, while the artists of Madrid had the example of Leonardos Codices, only recently rediscovered in the library to which these had passed. Later on the still life painters of Granada were to take Dutch and Flemish painting as a starting point. But the consistant fea- ture of the Spanish art of this time, whichever centre it stemmed from, was it extra Spanish ingredient, a sombre intensity that is quite distinct from the Italian vision. Nowhere is this so clear as in El Greco's Annunciation. There's no calm or peace in this, no time for steady contemplation. ' The action and the mood are as dramsti, and restless as the green robes of the angel. a green more strident than any seen before. El Green, Velasquez and Murillo ar. more familiar names than Ribera, wh spent most of creative life In th, Spanish outpost of Naples. The exhib; tion reinstates him in the heirarchy b - bringing together a major.body of En work, including the huge Calvary whic: has only recently been moved froi obscurity in Osuna to oleaned an, restored splendour in the Prado. It exemplifies the tradition of whic! Salvador Dali's horrific drama of th, crucifiction is a latter-day continuation Here as in portraits, still life paintin. and less sombre religious themes, a. is dark in the background. Light strike where the drama is most intense, hand, a foot, an agonised face. Tln artificiality of the lighting is all th. more sinister because the features i throws into relief are painted with th, most startling realism. A similar contrast between thf realism of the treatment and the extra, ordinary nature of the subject adds a' extra oddness to another painting b; Ribera . The Bearded Woman . Her' the painter displays the same kind in 16th century fascination with the abnoi mal and the strange as led Durer ti undertake long journeys to see swill( with five legs or unheard of monster:, This was after all the age of dis. covert', of the first taste of potato and