Scott Meskill

Defrocking The Cardinal

2020

Acrylic

Oil on canvas

Fabric collage

Acrylic

SALVADOR SÁNCHEZ BARBUDO Spanish, 1857 - 1917 THE CARDINAL'S VISIT signed, located and dated "Barbudo / ROMA 1902" (lower right) oil on canvas 22 x 33-2/3 inches (55.5 x 85.5 cm.) framed: 36-1/2 x 48-1/4 inches (92.5 x 122.5 cm.) PROVENANCE Private Collection, Munich LITERATURE Visita con el cardenal combines the two most salient characteristics of Sánchez-Barbudo's work: the search for novelty of theme and narrative content, and the use of minutely detailed brushwork and luminosity. Sánchez-Barbudo specialised in elaborate 'costume pictures', delighting the viewer with impressive details finely rendered with dazzling technical virtuosity. Here, Sánchez-Barbudo depicts a well-to-do bourgeois family receiving a cardinal in their home. The interior, sumptuously furnished in the rococo style, along with the rich costumes and fabrics, are beautifully observed. Yet beyond the high technique lavished upon the composition, the treatment is comic and full of character and suffused with a gently satirising anti-clericalism. The cardinal, far from getting the attention he expects, is, literally, sidelined, his expression and body language showing his pique. There is no doubt that contemporary collectors and spectators took pleasure in the sight of noble self-respecting figureheads of the church being brought back down to earth. The comedy was appealing, and the message suited the prevailing political mood of an increasingly secular middle-class buying public. Salvador Sánchez Barbudo was born on March 14, 1857 in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). He was one of the most important Spanish artists of the "casacón" genre, who followed the Fortuny tradition in Rome. During his childhood he was under the protection of the Marquis del Castillo and in 1875 he moved to Seville where he attended the School of Fine Arts, becoming a disciple of José Villegas...

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