Juan Carrillo
Juan Carrillo is certainly one of the most representative painters of Spain. The king, his Majesty Juan Carlos, greatly respects and admires his genius. In the Royal Collection at Zarzuela Palace his Majesty possesses an extensive collection of canvases by the artist who he feels deserves the right to be called "the poetic painter" of Extremadura. Therefore, Jean Cassou, one of the most renowned authorities of Spanish culture, placed the artist in the true lineage of Iberian realism.
Whereas in Spain, like almost everywhere in the West, the cult of odd and informal has developed and prevailed, Carrillo remains intangibly faithful to the great pictorial traditions of his country, that is to say faithful to these eternal rules, still followed by those who do not care about a fashion which "so rapidly goes out of fashion" as Cocteau rightfully said. Today, is this not a challenge for a painter to rely on drawing - what Ingres called "the probity of art" - and which serves as the framework for every genuine painting.
The other challenge is to remain far from painting exuberances, graininess, spots and signs and stay close to a smooth, bright and satin painting. His inspiration is a further challenge for he turns his back on the madness of Fantastic and the starred extravagance of Surrealism. Carrillo's inspiration is drawn from his land of Extremadura, from the simplicity of familiar things. He enjoys painting haciendas as sober as convents, as vast as palaces, with their bare rooms, patios full of flowers, gardens with shady walks, fields where bending peasant women work hard on the soil, women who are the exhausted sisters of Arab wives, men's submissive slaves. That Carrillo's universe is mainly populated with women is not meaningless. Men only appear as featuring characters, as foils for women. These always appear as disenchanted persons, like the captives of Loti's Constantinople harem, whether they walk holding a child's hand, look dreamily out of their windows, wander in corridors they illuminate with a lamp, converse with a dove next to an aviary, or write secretly on their writing case some secret love letters they will probably never send. Carrillo's women are melancholic, mysterious, burnt by their aspirations and inhibitions and they only reveal of themselves a profile or the curved line of a cheek. Through these Matisse-like stylizations and simplifications, Carrillo introduces a touch of modernity in his timeless and static world which hardly changes through the years, a world where Millet's rural scenes and Bovary's provincial solitude endure.
All this is magnified by the magic of enchanting colours, in the style of a Gauguin who would be less barbarous. In Carrillo, trees are so many gold russet or burnt topaz suns, orchards are snow or dawn explosions. And at the same time, Chiaroscuro contrasts dear to Goya and Zurbaran, giving us the feeling of having before our eyes the scenes of some opera whose music would be Albeniz's or Granados' and whose libretto would be Federico Garcia's. Those varied challenges have made Carrillo an absolute maverick as any authentic artist should be. His works, earthly and mystical at the same time, are a rare example of an artist true to himself.
Fruits and Flowers
Oil on Board
26 by 30 inches
$14,000
Seller very motivated!!!
949-497-5578
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