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Lot Essay
‘Since I was a little boy I was obsessed with Velázquez’s Christ in the Prado Museum, with his face hidden behind the flamenco dancer’s black hair, his bullfighter’s feet, and his frozen marionette’s flesh transformed into Adonis. [In my Crucifixión works] I have tried to take this image and to shake it, and fill it with a gust of protest’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona 1980, p. 49).
‘The image is distinct, clearly stated, centered, framed… the only violence comes from the frenzy of brush strokes that set the proportions flying, that cut into the flesh, that bring the viscera up to the surface’ (G. Scarpetta, ‘Crucifixions: the Viewpoint of the Torturer’, Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 44).
Executed in 1961, Crucifixión is a magnificent incarnation of one of Antonio Saura’s most important and enduring subjects. ‘Since I was a little boy I was obsessed with Velázquez’s Christ in the Prado Museum’, the artist explains, ‘with his face hidden behind the flamenco dancer’s black hair, his bullfighter’s feet, and his frozen marionette’s flesh transformed into Adonis. [In my Crucifixión works] I have tried to take this image and to shake it, and fill it with a gust of protest’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona 1980, p. 49). From 1957 until his death in 1997, Saura returned time and time again to the image of the crucifixion, creating works which challenge centuries of iconographic representation. The present work stems from Saura’s early engagement with this perennial theme, and showcases the vigorous energy and searing vitality that characterise the Crucifixións of this period. Saura saw the image of Christ on the cross in deeply symbolic terms, reinterpreting it as an allegory for the tragedy of the human condition. Using a striking monochromatic palette, Saura articulates his tortured figure through caustic painterly gesture, schismatically inscribing the outline of a cross upon what he has referred to as ‘the absolute black of Velázquez’s background’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 48). Merging a quasi-Cubist approach to form with the exuberant vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, the work bears witness to the breadth of his artistic vision. Other works from the seminal Crucifixión series are held in the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
In his unique response to one of the world’s most deeply religious images, Saura places himself within a long line of antecedents, from Byzantine to medieval representations to those of Giotto, Piero della Francesco, El Greco, Rubens and Rembrandt, as well as modern proponents including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. As with Francis Bacon’s series of Popes, however, the artist’s obsession with his sacred subject is less a spiritual preoccupation than an investigation into the diverse registers of human expression. Whilst ostensibly reflecting upon pain and suffering in a manner similar to his forbears, Saura’s Crucifixións bring new emotive dimensions into focus. Many commentators have alluded to the sense of visceral ecstasy that Saura injects into his flayed figures, as well as his grotesque metamorphosis of the human form that borders on the comedic. Through these subtle nuances, Saura hopes to create a new icon for the contemporary age. As the artist explains, ‘Perhaps, in the image of a victim of a crucifixion I have reflected my situation as a man alone in a menacing universe which it is possible to confront with a scream, but also, in the back of the mirror, what interests me is simply the tragedy of a man – a man, not a god – nailed absurdly to a cross. An image which, like Goya’s execution victim with raised hands and white shirt, or the mother in Picasso’s Guernica, can still be a tragic symbol of our age’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 136).
With a strong allegiance to the Spanish masters dating back to his childhood, Saura breathed new life into the art of his native country, combining the gestural rudiments of contemporary Art Informel and American action painting and applying them to traditional Spanish themes. Principally interested in the human form, Saura worked in distinct thematic strands, and the Crucifixións take their place alongside a number of series chronicling women, nudes, crowds and figures from Spanish history. The artist combines his interest in figural subject matter with a fiercely abstract approach to form and technique. As Guy Scarpetta has argued, this results in brutally unabashed visual statements that distinguish Saura’s Crucifixións from those of his contemporaries, notably Willem de Kooning and Arnulf Rainer. ‘With Saura’, Scarpetta writes, ‘the image is distinct, clearly stated, centered, framed … the only violence comes from the frenzy of brush strokes that set the proportions flying, that cut into the flesh, that bring the viscera up to the surface’ (G. Scarpetta, ‘Crucifixions: the Viewpoint of the Torturer’, Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 44).
‘The image is distinct, clearly stated, centered, framed… the only violence comes from the frenzy of brush strokes that set the proportions flying, that cut into the flesh, that bring the viscera up to the surface’ (G. Scarpetta, ‘Crucifixions: the Viewpoint of the Torturer’, Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 44).
Executed in 1961, Crucifixión is a magnificent incarnation of one of Antonio Saura’s most important and enduring subjects. ‘Since I was a little boy I was obsessed with Velázquez’s Christ in the Prado Museum’, the artist explains, ‘with his face hidden behind the flamenco dancer’s black hair, his bullfighter’s feet, and his frozen marionette’s flesh transformed into Adonis. [In my Crucifixión works] I have tried to take this image and to shake it, and fill it with a gust of protest’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona 1980, p. 49). From 1957 until his death in 1997, Saura returned time and time again to the image of the crucifixion, creating works which challenge centuries of iconographic representation. The present work stems from Saura’s early engagement with this perennial theme, and showcases the vigorous energy and searing vitality that characterise the Crucifixións of this period. Saura saw the image of Christ on the cross in deeply symbolic terms, reinterpreting it as an allegory for the tragedy of the human condition. Using a striking monochromatic palette, Saura articulates his tortured figure through caustic painterly gesture, schismatically inscribing the outline of a cross upon what he has referred to as ‘the absolute black of Velázquez’s background’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 48). Merging a quasi-Cubist approach to form with the exuberant vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, the work bears witness to the breadth of his artistic vision. Other works from the seminal Crucifixión series are held in the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
In his unique response to one of the world’s most deeply religious images, Saura places himself within a long line of antecedents, from Byzantine to medieval representations to those of Giotto, Piero della Francesco, El Greco, Rubens and Rembrandt, as well as modern proponents including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. As with Francis Bacon’s series of Popes, however, the artist’s obsession with his sacred subject is less a spiritual preoccupation than an investigation into the diverse registers of human expression. Whilst ostensibly reflecting upon pain and suffering in a manner similar to his forbears, Saura’s Crucifixións bring new emotive dimensions into focus. Many commentators have alluded to the sense of visceral ecstasy that Saura injects into his flayed figures, as well as his grotesque metamorphosis of the human form that borders on the comedic. Through these subtle nuances, Saura hopes to create a new icon for the contemporary age. As the artist explains, ‘Perhaps, in the image of a victim of a crucifixion I have reflected my situation as a man alone in a menacing universe which it is possible to confront with a scream, but also, in the back of the mirror, what interests me is simply the tragedy of a man – a man, not a god – nailed absurdly to a cross. An image which, like Goya’s execution victim with raised hands and white shirt, or the mother in Picasso’s Guernica, can still be a tragic symbol of our age’ (A. Saura, quoted in Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 136).
With a strong allegiance to the Spanish masters dating back to his childhood, Saura breathed new life into the art of his native country, combining the gestural rudiments of contemporary Art Informel and American action painting and applying them to traditional Spanish themes. Principally interested in the human form, Saura worked in distinct thematic strands, and the Crucifixións take their place alongside a number of series chronicling women, nudes, crowds and figures from Spanish history. The artist combines his interest in figural subject matter with a fiercely abstract approach to form and technique. As Guy Scarpetta has argued, this results in brutally unabashed visual statements that distinguish Saura’s Crucifixións from those of his contemporaries, notably Willem de Kooning and Arnulf Rainer. ‘With Saura’, Scarpetta writes, ‘the image is distinct, clearly stated, centered, framed … the only violence comes from the frenzy of brush strokes that set the proportions flying, that cut into the flesh, that bring the viscera up to the surface’ (G. Scarpetta, ‘Crucifixions: the Viewpoint of the Torturer’, Antonio Saura, exh. cat., Museo d’Arte Moderna della Città di Lugano, Lugano, 1994, p. 44).