Equipo Realidad was made up of Joan Cardells (b. Valencia, 1948) and Jordi Ballester (b. Valencia, 1941, d. 2014). In 1973 they began a series of oil-paintings called Azañas bélicas ['Feats of War', but punning on the name of former President Azaña] or Pictures of History. One of the works in that series is Compressor used to blow up the western side of the Alcázar in Toledo in September 1936. This was one of the last works they produced together, because after ten years of cooperation they split in 1976, at the start of the transition to democracy in Spain. The series is based on events during the Spanish Civil War. It was the longest series produced by Equipo Realidad, and was painted mainly in whites, greys and blacks, echoing images of the war captured by photographers and documentary film-makers. Javier Lacruz writes that the group painted their 'unlived memories' of the war through photographs as images that did not contain the 'subjective deformation' that prevailed in the minds of survivors. At the same time, they were reinterpreting a traditional type of painting –historical pictures– which had been turned into a tool for ideological jingoism in the 19th century through monumental paintings produced for major institutions of the state. These paintings and all their imperialist rhetoric were incorporated into the collective imagery of the Franco regime. However, Ballester and Cardells did not slavishly copy photographs but rather altered them in painting, transforming the original images through the way in which their component elements were put together, by deforming the figures, etc. This re-reading of the images can only be interpreted as a sign of commitment on the part of the artists, who were linked in their early days to the Estampa Popular movement in Valencia and to Crónica de la Realidad.

The photo on which this oil painting is based 'portrayed' the compressor used to blow up one of the most important bastions of the pro-Franco forces: the Alcázar fortress in Toledo. The explosion put an end to a long siege with the surrender of the defenders to the army of the Republic. During the Franco dictatorship the story was spun into one of heroic resistance and devotion on the part of the besieged defenders, led by General Moscardó, in which he sacrificed his son Luis, who was capture by the Republican forces.

Isabel Tejeda