Anabela, my beauty Anabela, when are you going to wake up? With your softness body and commodity you seem to be relax and calm. Your face cannot be seen, neither your frontal silhouette. Who are you Anabela? Are you a serving girl, the artist mistress, or just a simple woman?
Jorge Velarde is a contemporary Latin
American artist from Ecuador. The oil on canvas composition was completed in 2011,
located at the MAAC (Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo) in Guayaquil,
Ecuador. Velarde is known for his contemporary art works and his fascinating
portraits. His portraits often portrayed his wife Anabela, and this work is one
example of them. He presents his wife in a relaxed position that transmits
tranquility and peace to the viewer.
Anabela
can be seen lying on the bed with her back to the viewer. and, appears to be
resting after a hard day’s work. The
artist’s wife is definitely his muse as he seems to captures every moment of
her life in his artwork. Painting her is a way to express his flove. He painted
her wife not looking at the viewer as a way to protect her identity.
“Anabela Acurrucada” is painted in the style
of photorealism. He represents his subject without artificiality, avoiding
supernatural elements. The wrinkles on Anabela’s feet are an exquisite detail
that makes the composition appear more real; similarly, the shadows in the
lower back of her let the viewer to identify the backbone of the person.
Moreover, the texture of the hair, cloth, and fabrics invited the viewer the
urge of touching the artwork.
This
horizontal composition is well balanced, with a female figure along shown lying
in her bed, with her back to the viewer taking up the vast majority of the
pictoral frame. Starting from the right with Anabela’s head, which is lined
toward the pillow putting weight to the right but balanced with the weight from
the woman’s buttocks on the left create a calm and stable image. Furthermore, the
painter brings the buttocks of the woman to the front of the paint to help
create more balance. Spaces used in a composition play a very important role, due
to the fact that these details are what defines if a work is balance or not. The
pale and soft colors evoke tranquility, peacefulness, and quietness that
influenced in the viewer’s emotional response to the work, which is one that
evokes mystery.
Velarde’s
brushwork adds to the soft textures created in this composition. The fabrics of
the bed, the hair and the clothes, all three have a lot of texture, which
rivals the details of a photograph. The strong use of perspective makes it more
seem hyperrealistic and three-dimensional.
This
artwork stands out within the exhibit because different from the others,
because of the modern tendency to paint more abstract, simple, with a lot of
colors, straight lines without representing the reality of what they see. In
this case, Velarde focuses his artistic intention of representing exactly what
he sees, the reality of his woman laying on the bed in the sunlight. In
comparison with today’s artworks, “Anabela Acurrucada” is very interesting and
unique; Personally, I appreciate Velarde’s figurative realism in today’s
postmodern society more because of the ability to identify with central figure.
Though
we do not know why he chose to portray his wife in this position but I would
like to postulate that Velarde is trying to both evoke and express a feeling of
love. He has painted the reality of his life in this quiet room of pale colors
and his wife in pajamas, lying in bed, and gives the viewer a
refresh and tranquil feeling.
Anabela Acurrucada invites the viewer to reflect upon this
moment of repose, by appreciating as the painter has, the beauty within the
minute details of this intimate domestic setting. It reminds me, quite
poignantly, of Aristotle’s irreplaceable mind, “the aim of art is to represent
not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance”. Bravo, Velarde, Aristotle would approve.
Figure
1. “Anabela Acurrucada”
Amanda Vallarino
December 10 , 2013
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