Romero de Torres and Zuloaga, two teachers face to face in Cordoba

Overflowing with talent and living at the same time, they developed very different traits in their respective evolution. The pictorial work of Julio Romero de Torres is placed next to that of Ignacio Zuloaga so that the viewer can draw their own conclusions through the contemplation of 24 works, including eleven by the Basque creator and the rest by the father of “Chiquita piconera”.

Oscar Fernándezthe curator of the exhibition, articulates this visual journey by playing with the different rooms and grouping the paintings by theme. Thus, the first group synthesizes the turn of the century, its respective beginnings and brings together the oil paintings “Les Heures d’Agoisse” with “La Dame à l’ombrelle”, which represents a woman dressed in a mantilla, with the way of the times, carrying a white lace umbrella to protect herself from the sun.

It also addresses the figure in the landscape contrasting the “Portrait of Doña Adela de Quintana Moreno”, from 1910, with that made by Romero de Torres by María Aguilar. In the first, Zuloaga shows the protagonist in large format, in full body, although in profile, dressed entirely in black, on a cold and windy day in northern Spain. In the background you can see a mountain and a small town, while the sky is covered with big black clouds.

In the section titled “Modern Eve” brought together the “Portrait of the Countess of Colomera” and “Diana” with the “Portrait of Doña María del Carmen Gómez Acebo”, which Zuloaga painted, all imbued with beauty, elegance and sophistication.

Ignacio Zuloaga was born in Eibar (Guipuzcoa) in 1870 and died in Madrid in 1945. Julio Romero de Torres was born in 1874 in Córdoba and also died there in 1930.

Spanish art of this period was going through a prosperous period, after the disaster of 1898, in contact with new trends artistic traditions of Europe and the desire to find its own language. “The goal was, in most cases, to distill the eternal from the transitory, the universal from the local,” in the words of Óscar Fernández.

Zuloaga and Romero de Torres played a crucial role in this panorama and it is common to show them “as antagonistic figures» for reasons of geography, style and tone. The first integrated into the modern Parisian art scene and admired Greco, while Romero de Torres opted for folklorism, Italian classicism and the symbolism of Central Europe.

Vimcorsa’s proposal takes the viewer, once entering room two, through the female bodyby the hand of ‘Desnudo de mujer’, by the Basque designer, which shows its protagonist lying next to a Manila shawl, and rubs shoulders with the enigmatic works, full of sensuality, of the ‘Offering to the art of bullfighting ‘ from Cordoba. , “Salomé” and the famous “Oranges and lemons”. The differences are obvious in these four paintings full of artistic maturity, in the 1920s.

The turn of male characters arrives in the third room. The Count of Campo Alegre, from 1892, depicts a refined and relaxed man, dressed in a white suit and with a landscape of tall trees in the background. It is a work full of luminosity, but a beginner’s work, in which Zuloaga was still searching for his style.

Cohabit with ‘A bohemian (Portrait of Pablo Uranga)’, a drawing made in charcoal on cardboard, on another Basque artist he met in Paris. It stands out for the importance of the human figure and the gesture of the protagonist with his hands in his pockets.

The “Portrait of Pablo Uranga,” also in charcoal and Conté pencil on cardboard, reflects the same man but 30 years later and with Zuloaga recovering from an illness. This work stands out for the oil painting that immortalized José Félix Huerta.

THE bullfighting theme appears with the portrait that Romero de Torres made of Guerra in 1900, with the bullfighter standing next to a ladder, and the time comes to appreciate the “Gypsy Picador”, seated. Once again, the great contrasts are evident when it comes to discussing the same subjects.

On the religious level, “The Cardinal” of 1912 emerges, in which we can see the chromatic intensity, a work created after the Basque painter’s stay in Castile, which marked him forever. He is embodied by his usual model, Francis, dressed in the purple which corresponds to the princes of the Church. The painting shows a clear influence of El Greco both in the elongated figure of the young priest next to the protagonist and in the atmosphere and in the background, the Segovian town of Sepúlveda.

This is where “Our Lady of Andalusia”, by Romero de Torres, is arranged. There is also the “Portrait of Doña Rosita Gutiérrez”, dated between 1914 and 1915. The woman looks black mantilla and half a tile and he is in mourning. It takes place against the backdrop of the landscape of an unidentified city, and with a dimly lit sky with very dark blue tones. Next to it is a portrait that also looks directly at the painter in a work in which the woman shows a fan with one of Goya’s “Majas.”

The exhibition also includes “Landscape of La Rioja”, the view panorama of a white city, located in a valley. A river, bridges and farmland alternate with mountains in a breathtaking view. dark skyvery characteristic of his work. “Flower of Holiness”, “Mystical Love” and “Archangel Saint Raphael”, which clarify the sacred and profane vision so typical of the Andalusian creator.

Finally, “Rivalidad”, by Romero de Torres, does not appear in this quote because it is in the process of being purchased, following the agreement between the Town Hall and Prasa.

All these elements, intertwined, result in “the opening of a new window or a line of research on the relationship between Romero de Torres and this author of his time to do something new that allows us to expand the knowledge of the author”, as points out Enrique Ortegaresponsible for the Municipal Museums of Córdoba.