Armando Reverón
Encyclopedia
Armando Julio Reverón was a modernist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century in Venezuela
. Most of his work was inspired by the coast, landscape and people of Macuto
, located in the central coast of Venezuela, and was characterized by his view and expression of the bright luminosity of the tropic.
, Reverón was raised in Valencia by a family of Canarian
origin, the Rodríguez-Zucca's, who took care of him during his early childhood and sent him to the local Salesian school after his parents separated. His maternal uncle, Ricardo Montilla, who studied art in New York and started to teach him basic painting techniques, was an important early influence to the young Reverón. Also he became friends with their daughter, Josefina, who later became a model for some of his early paintings. However, after a few years he moved back with his mother, Dolores Travieso Montilla, to Caracas. During this time he met a young painter, César Prieto, who convinced him to enroll in the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes, directed then by Emilio Mauri, in order to begin his formal artistic training. At the Academy he studied under Antonio Herrera Toro, Emilio Mauri and Pedro Zerpa.
His early talent helped him gain a recommendation by his professors to obtain in 1911 a scholarship to study in Europe
. The same year, he travelled to Barcelona
where he joined his friend, the Venezuelan painter, Rafael Monasterios at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios y Bellas Artes to study under Vicente Borrás Avella. In 1912, after a brief return to Caracas where he tried to sell a portrait of the art critic Enrique Planchart, he went to Madrid and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
to take the classes of Antonio Muñoz Degrein and José Moreno Carbonero
, an extravagant artist and teacher of Salvador Dalí
. In Spain he became particularly captivated by the works of Francisco Goya
, Diego Velázquez
and El Greco
.
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He returned to Venezuela in 1915 and joined the sessions of the "Círculo de Bellas Artes", founded by his classmates of the Academia Nacional, as a way to revolt against the dominant tradition of academic painting
, characterized by its historical and literary subject matter. The young painters set up an independent studio without teachers or prescribed aesthetic guidelines and focused their work on the subject of nature. Although Reverón was absent when the Círculo started, the founders considered him an important contributor and member. In 1916, Reverón painted his first landscapes using only blue tonalities, a period of his work that will be later known as the "Blue Period". Shortly afterward, he moved to the city of La Guaira
where he lived teaching drawing and painting. There he met Juanita Mota, during the carnival of 1918, who became his model and inseparable lifetime companion. Also during that time, Reverón worked with Nicholas Ferdinandov, a painter of Russian origin, whom he met in Caracas the previous year. Following the advice of Ferdinandov, Reverón decided to settle on the coast, initiating a new stage in his life and work.
. At the beginning of 1940, he initiated his “Sepia Period”, characterized by the use of linen cloth (coleto) as background for the paintings of the coast and the port of La Guaira
which helped him enhance the brown tones constituting the dominant colors of the composition. The themes of his paintings during this time were mainly beaches(playón) and sea landscapes.
The last of his mental crises took place in 1953, the same year he was conferred the Premio Nacional de Pintura for his Gran Desnudo Acostado, and had to be hospitalized again. In spite of the situation he devoted all of his efforts in preparation for a retrospective exhibition that had been announced for the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas. However, he died suddenly in the "San Jorge" Hospital in Caracas on September 18, 1954.
In addition, the Venezuelan director Margot Benacerraf
made a thirty-minute documentary about the artist, Reveron, released in 1952.
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. Most of his work was inspired by the coast, landscape and people of Macuto
Macuto, Vargas
Macuto is a city in Vargas state, Venezuela.Macuto was founded in August 1740 on the site of an indigenous village called Guaicamacuto . It is known for its beaches, and for the town of Galipán, famous for its flowers....
, located in the central coast of Venezuela, and was characterized by his view and expression of the bright luminosity of the tropic.
Early life
Born in CaracasCaracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Reverón was raised in Valencia by a family of Canarian
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
origin, the Rodríguez-Zucca's, who took care of him during his early childhood and sent him to the local Salesian school after his parents separated. His maternal uncle, Ricardo Montilla, who studied art in New York and started to teach him basic painting techniques, was an important early influence to the young Reverón. Also he became friends with their daughter, Josefina, who later became a model for some of his early paintings. However, after a few years he moved back with his mother, Dolores Travieso Montilla, to Caracas. During this time he met a young painter, César Prieto, who convinced him to enroll in the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes, directed then by Emilio Mauri, in order to begin his formal artistic training. At the Academy he studied under Antonio Herrera Toro, Emilio Mauri and Pedro Zerpa.
His early talent helped him gain a recommendation by his professors to obtain in 1911 a scholarship to study in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The same year, he travelled to Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
where he joined his friend, the Venezuelan painter, Rafael Monasterios at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios y Bellas Artes to study under Vicente Borrás Avella. In 1912, after a brief return to Caracas where he tried to sell a portrait of the art critic Enrique Planchart, he went to Madrid and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery....
to take the classes of Antonio Muñoz Degrein and José Moreno Carbonero
José Moreno Carbonero
-Biography:Moreno Carbonero was born in the Perchel quarter of Málaga. In 1868 he joined the art school of his home town, where he was a student of José Denis Belgrano and Bernardo Ferrándiz. At the age of 12 he took part in an art competition in Málaga and won a gold medal. In the same year he...
, an extravagant artist and teacher of Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. In Spain he became particularly captivated by the works of Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
, Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
and El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
.
Blue period
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
, characterized by its historical and literary subject matter. The young painters set up an independent studio without teachers or prescribed aesthetic guidelines and focused their work on the subject of nature. Although Reverón was absent when the Círculo started, the founders considered him an important contributor and member. In 1916, Reverón painted his first landscapes using only blue tonalities, a period of his work that will be later known as the "Blue Period". Shortly afterward, he moved to the city of La Guaira
La Guaira
La Guaira is the capital city of the Venezuelan state of Vargas and the country's chief port. It was founded in 1577 as an outlet for Caracas, to the southeast. The town and the port were badly damaged during the December 1999 floods and mudslides that affected much of the region...
where he lived teaching drawing and painting. There he met Juanita Mota, during the carnival of 1918, who became his model and inseparable lifetime companion. Also during that time, Reverón worked with Nicholas Ferdinandov, a painter of Russian origin, whom he met in Caracas the previous year. Following the advice of Ferdinandov, Reverón decided to settle on the coast, initiating a new stage in his life and work.
White period
In 1921, he moved to a farm near the beach, inside a neighborhood of Macuto known as Las Quince Letras. Just a short time later he began to construct the Castillete (or little castle) which would become his home for the rest of his life. His decision to build the Castillete was a symbol of the transformation of his artistic concepts. In this period he adopted primitive habits and broke ties with any kind of city-lifestyle, withdrawing from society in his Castillete. Reverón felt that in this way he could develop a deeper perception of nature and then apply it to his method of painting, such as adopting procedures and materials that appropriately represented the atmosphere of the landscape under the effects of the glare produced by the direct light of the sun. This period of his work is known as the “White Period”, and spans approximately the years 1924 to 1932. Unfortunately, the Castillete, which since 1974 functioned as the Reverón Museum, was almost completely destroyed during the 1999 Vargas mudslides.Sepia period
In 1933, he received the first important recognition of his work with an exhibition at the Ateneo de Caracas and later at the gallery Katia Granoff in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. At the beginning of 1940, he initiated his “Sepia Period”, characterized by the use of linen cloth (coleto) as background for the paintings of the coast and the port of La Guaira
La Guaira
La Guaira is the capital city of the Venezuelan state of Vargas and the country's chief port. It was founded in 1577 as an outlet for Caracas, to the southeast. The town and the port were badly damaged during the December 1999 floods and mudslides that affected much of the region...
which helped him enhance the brown tones constituting the dominant colors of the composition. The themes of his paintings during this time were mainly beaches(playón) and sea landscapes.
Final years
An acute depression crisis forced him to be taken to San Jorge hospital. When Reverón came back to the Castillete, he took refuge in a magical universe, surrounded by objects of his creation such as dolls and animals which gave origin to the last and semi-delirious expressionist stage of his work. He would dress up the dolls and use them as models for his paintings all of whom he named, dressed, made nonfunctional objects for (a telephone, a bottle, crowns) and cared for on an individual basis, possibly a symptom of his schizophrenia and loneliness. This figurative stage was characterized by the use of chalks (creyones) and by the creation of theater plays with his dolls that perhaps helped him recover his emotional balance.The last of his mental crises took place in 1953, the same year he was conferred the Premio Nacional de Pintura for his Gran Desnudo Acostado, and had to be hospitalized again. In spite of the situation he devoted all of his efforts in preparation for a retrospective exhibition that had been announced for the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas. However, he died suddenly in the "San Jorge" Hospital in Caracas on September 18, 1954.
Chronology
- 1889 born in Caracas on May 10. His father was Julio Reverón Garmendia and his mother Dolores Travieso Montilla.
- 1896 moves to Valencia under the care of the family Rodríguez Hosca
- 1902 becomes ill from Typhoid feverTyphoid feverTyphoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
- 1908–1911 studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes de Caracas and obtains a scholarship to continue studying in Spain.
- 1912–1913 studies at the Academia de San Fernando, Madrid.
- 1914 travels to FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Works at the FournierFournier* Fournier RF-4 is a motor glider* Museo Fournier de Naipes is a playing card museumFournier is a surname:*Alain Fournier, computer graphics researcher*Alain-Fournier, French writer*Alphonse Fournier , Canadian politician...
workshop, ChantillyChantilly, OiseChantilly is a small city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune in the department of Oise.It is in the metropolitan area of Paris 38.4 km...
and paints the landscapes around Paris.
- 1915 returns to Venezuela.
- 1917 moves to La Guaira. Teaches painting to rich families.
- 1918 moves to the home of Nicolás Ferdinandov, located at Punta de Mulatos. Begins to use blue tonalities in his work. Meets Juanita Mota, his model, companion and wife.
- 1921 moves to Las Quince Letras in Macuto. Begins the construction of his residence and workshop El Castillete. Blue Period.
- 1925 begins the White period, which involves a deeper study of the light.
- 1927–1930 paints mostly outdoors and constructs his own painting instruments.
- 1933 stops using oil paintings and uses only pigments prepared by him. Suffers his first nervous breakdown.
- 1934 paints over cardboard and with fast strokes.
- 1936 goes back to oil painting and begins the Sepia period.
- 1939 builds first with dolls and paints female figures.
- 1945 suffers more nervous breakdowns and is hospitalized.
- 1947 builds more dolls, furniture, musical instruments, hats and masks.
- 1950 uses dolls as models and as characters for scenographies.
- 1953 after another nervous breakdown and after treatment returns to painting. Receives the Premio Nacional de Pintura for his Gran Desnudo Acostado.
- 1954 dies on September 18.
Feature Film
A film based on the life of Reveron, directed by Diego Risquez and starring Luigi Sciamanna as Armando Reverón was released in Venezuela on May 2011, so far the film has received generally positive reviews with special mention to Sciamanna's marvelous performance as Reveron.In addition, the Venezuelan director Margot Benacerraf
Margot Benacerraf
Margot Benacerraf is a Venezuelan director born in the city of Caracas. Benacerraf studied at IDHEC in Paris. Her two most well-known films are the documentaries Reverón and Araya. Reverón illustrates the life of the well-known Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón...
made a thirty-minute documentary about the artist, Reveron, released in 1952.
External links
- http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=26382007 Reverón exhibition at the MOMAMomaMoma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
] - http://buscador.eluniversal.com/2007/02/07/til_art_170625.shtmlNoelia Sastre, "Reverón encandila a Nueva York" Newspaper El UniversalEl Universal (Caracas)El Universal is a major Venezuelan newspaper, headquartered in Caracas with an average daily circulation of about 150,000. The online version carries news, politics, sports, economy and more....
] - Armando Reverón in Literal – features images from Reverón's work