From 29 October 2016, the State Hermitage is holding the exhibition Surrealism in Catalonia. The artists of Empordà and Salvador Dalí which presents 70 works by 29 different Catalan artists.
The exhibits include not only paintings, but also works of sculpture and graphic art created by artists from this part of Spain in the period from the late 19th century to the late 20th. For the first time members of the Russian public have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with works by Spanish surrealists, to see and understand the genesis of one of the 20th century's most attractive and intriguing artistic phenomena.
When people start talking about Spanish Surrealism, they speak about the Surrealism of Catalonia and first and foremost about the Surrealism of Empordà. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the region of Empordà that became the chief centre for Surrealist experimentation in the brilliant flourishing of...Catalan art.
This complex artistic phenomenon, which is being presented for the first time in an exhibition at the Hermitage, gives idiosyncratic "refracted" expression to the ancient culture of the area and its completely fabulous and sometimes unreal-looking landscape that awakens the creative imagination and imposes on the artists' works that particular distinctiveness that makes it possible to speak of an "Empordà school" in the history of European Surrealism. The most important characteristic of this school became its loyalty to aesthetic values from the history of European art (walking around the display, it is possible to spot "quotations" from well-known works by artists of the past). Two main centres stand out: Cadaqués and Figueres.
The "School of Figueres" emerged in the early 20th century, as a result of the teaching activities of the superb draughtsman and graphic artist Juan Núñez, and had an influence on the group of young artists that included Salvador Dalí. The work of those artists is marked by exceptional realism, and a painstaking, immaculate drawing technique, almost always in graphite or charcoal. They produced still lifes resembling Dutch 17th-century a paintings and depictions of interiors filled with strong contrasts of light and shade and imbued with an enigmatic atmosphere of mystery.
It was in Figueres and its environs that Josep Bonaterra, the patriarch of Empordà painting worked. It was there too that Dalí's talent took shape.
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), the foremost exponent of Surrealism as a worldwide phenomenon, remained despite his global fame as a universal artist not only a Catalan artist, but even to a significant degree an Empordan - an inhabitant of the towns of Figueres, Cadaqués and Portlligat. He found inspiration in landscapes familiar from childhood, friends and artists with whom he remained on warm terms all his life. Dalí does not encompass the whole of Empordà painting, nor even Empordà Surrealism, but he alone by some incomprehensible means managed to be first to present it to the world and make it famous.
Dalí's oeuvre is represented in the exhibition by the works The Severed Hand (1928), Exquisite Corpse (1930-33), Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933), Surrealist Object Functioning Symbolically (1933-70), Soft Skulls and Cranial Harp (1935), Saint Narcissus (1962), Venus with Drawers (1971) and the famous painting Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening from the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The world first learnt about Cadaqués thanks to the sculptors Carles Ridaura (Motherhood, 20th c.) and Frederic Marès (Female Figure, 1930). Others who worked there were Eliseu Meifrèn, who was passionately fond of the sea and discovered wonderful, secluded little corners of Cadaqués, and Ramon Pichot i Gironès, whose life was spent between a studio in Paris and long seasons in the Catalan town. Cadaqués was home between the world wars to the German artist Siegfried Burmann, who painted landscapes there and also portraits of Salvador Dalí and his sister Anna Maria in childhood. Common features of this constellation of artists are splendid realistic drawing and a fascination with the countryside of Empordà that plays a leading role in their works.
In a list of the most famous and significant Surrealists Dalí is followed by Àngel Planells (Moon on the Seashore, 1947). Other prominent Empordà artists include Esteban Francés (Surrealist Composition, 1932), Jaume Figueras (Surrealist Landscape, 1980), and two figures close to Evarist Vallès and Joan Massanet. It would be stating the obvious to say that to one degree or another all Empordà artists who came after Dalí were subject to his influence.
The curators of the exhibition: the Hermitage curator is Sviatoslav Savvateev, a researcher of the Department of Western European Art; the Catalonia curators are Alícia Viñas and Yuri Saveliev.
The State Hermitage Publishing House has produced a catalogue for the exhibition Surrealism in Catalonia. The artists of Empordà and Salvador Dalí with texts by Spanish art historians and art critics.
The exhibition is under patronage of V St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.
Entrada actualizada el el 10 nov de 2016
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