Claudio BRAVO

This very large and refined still life, executed in pastel, was drawn in 1985. Characterized by an even illumination in which each of the objects is seen with the utmost clarity, works such as this serve to underscore Claudio Bravo’s comment that ‘The objects in these still life paintings transcend reality. I use light a bit like Zurbarán did. He was one of the few painters that gave true transcendent meanings to objects. This treatment of the light makes things seem more than they are…their essence is greater.’ The larger wicker basket appears in other still life compositions by the artist, such as an equally sizeable pastel drawing of Bread and Artichokes on a Table of 1984, as well as an oil painting of Breads completed in 2000.

Pastel works such as this are a testament to Bravo’s abiding interest in the classical tradition of European still life painting, and in particular the bodegón paintings produced in Spain in the late 16th and 17th century. As the artist’s friend, the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, has written of Bravo, ‘His true masters are the great classical masters, particularly Spanish 17th century, the Golden Age of Baroque, such as Fray Juan Sánchez Cotán, Antonio de Pereda or Francisco de Zurbarán, who revolutionized the treatment of the object, conferring on their still lifes – through a scrupulous study of details and the play of light – a dignity and intensity which appear to emancipate them from the inert and humanize them. Claudio Bravo has updated this old school with his oil paintings, pastels and drawings of flowers, fruit, vegetables, jugs, tablecloths, mortars, cruets, cooking pots, ostrich eggs, rugs, glasses, stones, and hampers which it would be unfair to call “still life”, since that label immediately suggests the inanimate, the decorative…these images shimmer like precious jewels, they become giant-like heroes whose outstanding presence has desolated their surroundings.’