The exhibition Paths to Modernity in the collection Gerstenmaier presented these days in Gijón, takes us back to a time marked by the artistic tradition of Spanish painting and the influence of the new echoes that come from Europe in the nineteenth century. This itinerary starts in neoclassical painting with the disciples of Jacques Louis David, and is directed toward Romanticism and, since the second half of the century, to the landscape that reflects the influence of nature on the passions of man.

The exhibition shows how realistic painting was introduced, slowly through the romantic guidelines in the academic context, noting in this regard the figure of Charles de Haes, the success of the school landscape established in the second half of the nineteenth century. Just one of his disciples, Aureliano de Beruete, figures in the exhibition with works such as Avia Shores, Grindelwald and Walls of Ávila. Moreover, artists like Hermen Anglada-Camarasa and Darío Regoyos frequented Paris as leading exponents of French Impressionist landscape spirit, with compositions like La Masia or Almería beach at night, showing their freshness and innovation.

In parallel we find that the portrait becomes the quintessential art genre of this century. The exhibition features works by Joaquín Sorolla, Portrait of a Lady (1913), as well as the unmistakable style of the work by Ignacio Zuloaga (Angustias with white mantilla). Besides these, paintings by Manuel Benedito Vives and Raimundo Madrazo. And other movements such as Modernism represented in works by members of Els Quatre Gats such as Isidro Nonell and Joaquin Mir, accompanied by Eliseo Meifrén.

Curated by Marisa Oropesa, Pathways to Modernity. Spanish painting from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Gerstenmaier collection will remain in the Centro Cultural Revillagigedo Palace of Cajastur in Gijón until April 8.

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