The myths grow in the distance. In the vicinity only trains and beards grow and, depending on how close you get, it may not even be that, it is possible until you have to squint to focus, like one of those myopic chiseled who end up smiling at fate without intending it. Everything is a problem of focus, therefore, art is always close to money and power. Squinting. And vice versa, because, the history of art is, in reality, the history of propaganda, of persuasive communication, of the sale of an idea, whether this idea is Rome, the Catholic Church or a woman with a bare chest guiding to France towards barbarism. It’s the same, Until the creation of the mass media, art occupies that symbolic place, it is the conduit through which the patron uses the skill of the artisan to fix symbolic images in the people. It doesn’t matter Miguel Ángel, Velázquez or Gabarrón (uf): it’s about being close to the circles of power, just as remoras are close to sharks. It seems legitimate to me. What I am not clear about is who is the remora and who is the shark in this fable. Clear the reader the x.
The first contemporary painter is Goya. Until him, there is no concept of plastic creation as a vehicle for self-enjoyment, for oneself, as a pure means of expression, without commissions or financial objectives involved. Without propaganda. Although, now that I think about it, maybe a man – or a woman – in Altamira was a few centuries ahead of the deaf man from Fuendetodos in what would be the first graffiti in history. That graffiti is not art, all graffiti artists know, especially Paleolithic people. Anyone who wants to see graffiti as urban art is delusional. Graffiti is vandalism, and therefore, by discarding art and not considering themselves artists, they are avant-garde and are out of the caves, which makes them truly independent. Because it should be remembered that being independent is not being poor but not needing money. Therefore, there is only something more independent than a millionaire: a graffiti millionaire.
“The history of art is, in reality, the history of propaganda, persuasive communication, the sale of an idea”
–
What we are going to. Antonio Gisbert Pérez, who would later become the director of the Prado Museum, painted in 1860 his celebrated work ‘Los comuneros Padilla, Bravo y Maldonado en el gallo’. ORA well-executed and purely propagandistic work created with the sole objective of being exhibited at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1860 and obtaining a gold medal, that is, to obtain money from the liberals of the government of Isabel II to use it as anti-propaganda. absolutist. Nihil novum sub sole. That of the medal of honor could not have been – conservative jury, that is to say, same propaganda, different sense – but the commotion that arose is of such caliber that it obtains that the Congress of the Deputies acquire it. And there it is, in the Portrait Gallery. By the way, it is not the only work dedicated to community members in the Carrera de San Jerónimo. In the same Session Room, in a very important place to the right of the president, there is a tombstone with the names of the community leaders. It must be so that our 31 deputies do not forget, due to disuse, that they should go to that tombstone with a ladder and stand there like Jeremiah at the Wailing Wall. Better yet, to give yourself a slap, as in the Pórtico de la Gloria.
–In the wake of Gisbert’s success, Other works on the same theme appear in the 1860s. The color of money, you know. Among them, those dedicated to the ‘Leona de Castilla’: ‘Doña María Pacheco manages to leave the city of Toledo disguised, thanks to the generosity of Gutierre López de Padilla’, by Domínguez Sánchez; ‘Doña María Pacheco receives the news of the death of her husband Juan de Padilla’, from Maureta and Aracil, or ‘Doña María Pacheco in the defense of Toledo’, from Rica and Almarca.
Lithographs
Lithographs like mushrooms began to be born, repeating themes, at the risk of success and fashion. From pasta. Especially noteworthy is the one exhibited in the National Library of Llanta y Guerín or the one made from the drawing by Múgica y Pérez, today in the Museum of History of Madrid from Fuencarral street. The same happens with other works such as ‘Doña María Pacheco receiving the farewell letter from her husband Padilla prisoner in Villalar’, by Commelerán y Gómez or ‘María Pacheco de Padilla after Villalar’, by Borràs i Mompó, acquired by the Museo del Prado and nowadays the University of Barcelona, where I suppose that these plateau things will be seen with the same exoticism with which in Valladolid we see Gauguin’s work. The DNA pothole, you know. A similar case is that of ‘Departure of the community members of Valladolid’, by Joan Planella, which was loaned to the Barcelona City Council and which after a century in the Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona It is currently in the stores of El Prado, forgotten, like the community members themselves. From the same period, two more works can be reviewed, one by Andrés Jiménez and another by Sánchez Santarén, the latter hanging today in the Valladolid City Hall.
–In the twentieth century the subject lost importance, although some other works were created that were omitted due to their relative relevance and because this text did not become an endless glossary. But there is another work of the 20th century attributable and it is none other than the purple of the flag of the Second Republic that, although it is not art, is undoubtedly an icon. And it is that this purple is a tribute to Castilla, according to the decree that regulated in 1931 the use of the tricolor flag and that seeks to recognize the people of Castilla as a fundamental part of the new state. «The two colors are preserved and a third is added, which tradition admits as the insignia of an illustrious region, the nerve of nationality, with which the emblem of the Republic, thus formed, more accurately sums up the harmony of a great Spain ». In other words, the purple of Castile for a very Castilian Spain. Perhaps those who today defend that tricolor flag should know what they defend. “Nerve of nationality,” he says. Let’s see if the Republicans are really going to be fachas and they without knowing it …
The purple band of the tricolor flag of the Republic recognized the people of Castile as an essential part of the new State
–
As for contemporary art, the project ‘Insurrecta’ by Gonzalo Borondo from Segovia is very interesting, which brilliantly commemorates the Commune Revolution through 32 billboards located throughout the city of Ronquillo. And, of course, the music, our beloved Nuevo Mester de Juglaría and Candeal in terms of traditional music, that rock version of ‘Canto de Esperanza por Castilla’ by the extinct Imperativo Legal or the opera just created for the V Centenario and that we will see brand new in a few months. That is, if someone does not think of avoiding the celebration along the way and limiting everything to a group of hands joined for peace, consensus and the multinationality of synergy and digital resilience, someone in Moncloa is not going to bother. And, above all, the Castilians are not going to find out about its history and get up at once. You already know the prophecy: “If the pine forests burned, there is still the oak.” We hope it won’t take five centuries.
– .
