” LITTLE MASTERPIECES “

Curated by Conchi Alvarez

This exhibition show a selection of works of eight artists with the common denominator of small size and varied techniques: oil paintings on canvas, acrylic on panel and canvas, ink drawings on parchments, watercolor on paper and prints.

Size has been important in art. Usually the patron was who established the dimensions of the work which was ordered to the artist, whether the client and protector was the Church, as if it were the Crown, or the nobility, and later the wealthy bourgeoisie. There was always a direct relationship between size and location of the work. Michelangelo Buonarroti made a huge David for an order that started from a huge block of marble, while the medieval illuminators were influenced by the support of their paintings: illuminated books, like the “vedute” from the eighteenth century, authours of small thorough, precious, conceived as a postal from that time, memories demanded by Venice’s tourists.

Throughout the History of the Art we have spectacular “little masterpieces” as mentioned above. How not to overcome with emotion at examples such as “Moises salvado de las aguas” by Verones, any of the pages of “Las muy ricas horas del Duque de Berry,” or the many delightful cameos carved in precious and semiprecious stones …

We can conclude that there were very few artists who created freely. This exhibition highlights the artist’s freedom today … is it really so? If you were to ask the eight artists why they turned to the small form exhibited here, their first answer would support the above thesis, but if we were to go deeper, maybe in the end a new patron would come out: the artist makes small work mediated by the economic situation, aware that it is difficult to find a buyer for the big work of art. And today, as yesterday, spectacular “little masterpieces” are made, like the ones exhibited in Stoa.

Artists: Annabel Overbury, Belen Esturla, Maria Jesus Ramirez, Paz Aymerich, Javier Infantes, Juan Manuel Alvarez Cebrian, Gloria Ducas y Conchi Alvarez