When Garay caricatured Murcian society

Date:

The art historians who study this period and the painter’s biographers tiptoe over the creative facet of the humorous drawing, which is not an anecdote in his artistic life, but to which he spends many hours.

Especially for many young people the name Ronda de Garay on the Murcian street map may mean little or nothing, but it should be known, for those who don’t know it yet, that Luis Garay was an important Murcian costumbrist painter (1893-1956), famous outside and within the region of Murcia, about whom much has been written and whose creative work there are abundant examples in private collections and museums, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in the capital.

But when we deal with Garay now, we are commemorating a century of the exhibition of caricatures of respectable personalities of Murcian social life (regardless of gender, although there are more male ones), including that of the politician Vicente Llovera, the senators Emilio Díez de Revenga and Isidoro de la Cierva, the former mayors of Murcia Antonio Clemares Gallego and José María Hilla; the professor and director of the Artistic Circle Mariano Ruiz Funes; the journalist and director of the newspaper ‘El Liberal’ Pedro Jara Carrillo; the photographer Francisco Miralles; the sculptor Antonio Garrigós; the painter and literary critic Luis Gil de Vicario; the writers Ramiro Pinazo and Andrés Bolarín; the poet Pedro Boluda; the professor and writer Dionisio Sierra; the musician Emilio Ramírez and five women: Angelita López Higuera, María Guillosira, Josefina Alcaraz, Rosa Benevente and María Luisa Pérez Xambó, among many others, up to the 48 cartoons exhibited in the Círculo de Bellas Artes.

It goes without saying that everyone associated with the world of the arts is part of the “modernism” that still prevails in Murcian culture, in which Spanish and European cultural trends have taken so long to interact. come, but when they get the letter of nature is also slowly replaced by the next.

At the exhibition in question, Luis Gil de Vicario, the regular critic of the newspaper ‘El Liberal’, made valid remarks, theorizing about the origins of the caricature or ‘humorous painting’, he elaborated on the tendencies and also the attitude of the visitors the opening day of the exhibition: “faced with the irony of the misunderstanding, the anathemas of many and the shrug of the shoulders of the majority, the exhibition opened the new course of the Círculo de Bellas Artes”.

Strangely enough, the Murcian art historians who study this period and Garay’s biographers tiptoe over the creative facet of humorous drawings, which is not an anecdote in his artistic life, but to which he devotes many hours of work, as can be seen in the exhibition of the Circulo. the Bellas Artes, who did not leave indifferent the Murcian society of the time, who knew the models of the caricatures perfectly, with whom they crossed daily in the street, in the aquariums of the Casino or in the lavish acts that the Circle led by the active director.

Gil de Vicario’s commentary ends with an allusion to an artistic activity complementary to the exhibition; and it is the presentation in it of «48 different posters, announcing the exhibition. Original posters by a twelve-year-old boy: Ramón Gaya, eloquence of a rare and precocious talent that promises a powerful artistic personality».

Unfortunately, we do not know whether any of the 48 cartoons that Garay presented in the Círculo Artístico exhibition, now a hundred years ago, are in the hands of descendants of the family, who, if they offered us their knowledge, could being of an exhibit of what might be left of that monster. My inquiries to some relatives, descendants of the caricatures, have so far been unsuccessful. Nor do we know of any of the 48 posters that Ramón Gaya made, in a plastic creation display, for the exhibition. That they would also serve (if they exist) to advance Gaya’s well-known work in time, the first painting of which, in the museum of his name in the capital, is ‘La silla’, from 1923.

Faced with the disappearance of so many works of art, one wonders how it is possible that so much has been lost in such a short time, in the hands of individuals, and for which it is not the fault of the owners of the works of art. works, due to neglect, ignorance or undervaluation of our artists, to whom we have not paid due attention. It is not about artists of past centuries. They are makers from only a hundred years ago, who are the grandparents of the people of my generation.

I insist, to conclude, in my invitation to the descendants of the caricatures, to “snoop” in old books or papers, even in the false bottom of old portraits or photographs, in case one of those caricatures should that would be of great value to our generation today. However, I am very afraid that when much of the Murcian society left the old buildings where it lived, inherited from their ancestors, in the 60s and 70s of recent years. To be replaced in the 20th century by new, smaller and more comfortable homes, these works of art ended up in the garbage truck or at most in the hands of unscrupulous speculators of the old, who did not value what was due to little or no money.

Source: La Verdad

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related

Free Good Friday – Renewed calls from the Protestant church for a holiday

As has been the case every year since its...

Murder by negligence? – Flixbus crash: investigations against hapless drivers

After the serious bus accident on Autobahn 9 near...

Woman brings crested pom-pom to animal rescue station

One night an English woman tried to nurse a...

Criticism from the Greens – Minister Raab invited to the “Leitkultur” panel of experts

Integration Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) is starting to design...