Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Dios de la fruta [God of Fruit]

Image caption
GABRIEL MORCILLO RAYA

Dios de la fruta [God of Fruit]

  • 1936
  • Oil on canvas
  • 125 x 115 cm
  • Cat. P_372
  • Acquired in 1936
  • Observations: This work was acquired by the collection in a raffle in 1936.
By:
Javier Moya

Gabriel Morcillo painted numerous nudes between around 1914 and 1936. However, following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he abruptly ceased the practise, and this God of the Fruit (1936) must therefore be one of the last of the genre. In the course of those two decades, the artist developed an extensive range of shepherds, Bacchi and Moors of remarkable material quality in a morbid late-symbolist aesthetic, creating an unprecedented space for the male nude in Spanish art. In the artist's immensely personal universe, perhaps the most characteristic feature of his nudes was the fact that he almost exclusively depicted young men, making him unique among contemporary artists.

The nudes are rarely, if ever, depicted in full, and physically the subjects are always of a sort of fibrous slenderness, with specific physiognomic features related to Morcillo's own particular vision of a certain impossible Nasrid Granada. There is very little that is archaeologically factual about these depictions, which are vaguely inspired by Arab-Andalusian literature and the tales and legends of Chateaubriand and Washington Irving. They are clearly works of pure fantasy, a pretext to recreate a universe inhabited by bodies and objects that the artist liked, which he delighted in grouping together, combining and placing them before a backdrop that resembles a stage, a theatrical backdrop or a photographer's studio. Even where the background includes a landscape, there is no attempt to conceal the undisguised artifice, nor to use natural light to bring nuance to the closed forms and insistent contours, sharply defined by the electric lighting. This approach to twentieth-century painting displays a clear continuation of academic modes that eschews any alignment with the art movements of his time. Moreover, there is nothing remotely complex about Morcillo's art. We can clearly see the painter's fondness for representing the quality of the fabrics, the shine of the metals and glass, the delicious surfaces of the fruits and the anatomical forms and tactility of the skin of the subject, who looks less like a god and more like some slave from an imagined homoerotic version of The Thousand and One Nights.

Javier Moya

 
By:
Javier Moya
Gabriel Morcillo Raya
Granada 1887 - Granada 1973

Gabriel Morcillo Raya received his first education in art at the embroidery workshop of his aunt Paquita Raya. At the age of nineteen, he enrolled in the School of Industrial Arts in Granada, which was under the directorship of Manuel Gómez-Moreno González. There he learned painting from Miguel Vico Hernández and José de Larrocha González. In 1907 he moved for a time to Madrid, to continue his studies under Cecilio Pla. However, he could not afford to stay and moved back to Granada. In 1910, he received a scholarship from Granada Provincial Council to continue his interrupted studies in Madrid, where he lived until 1914. During his time in the city, he submitted work to the 1912 National Exhibition of Fine Arts, receiving an honourable mention. He did not participate in the contest again. In 1916 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the School of Fine Arts in Rome. However, he turned it down, perhaps as a result of winning the competition to design a poster for the local Corpus Christi festivities three years running.

The decision to stay in Granada engendered a form of isolation that characterised practically all of the rest of his life and made him a very singular artist. His style of painting was also very characteristic. Over the years, he continued to employ the same, insistent, oily, material practically without changes. However, his subject matter ranged from local characters (very much in keeping with contemporary tastes and one of the hallmarks of Spanish art), and a highly personal universe inspired by the tales of Washington Irving and the legends of medieval Granada. Both his figures and his still lifes exude an extraordinary sensuality, with his own very personal and characteristic brand of orientalism. Throughout his life, he enjoyed uninterrupted success in Spain and abroad, with exhibitions in New York, Buenos Aires and Venice.

In addition to his painting, Morcillo also gave classes, first, at the Alhambra Painters Residence in 1922; and from 1927 on, at the School of Arts and Crafts, where he lectured in decorative painting and life drawing, a post he first acquired as a substitute teacher in 1922. He went on to become a professor and was the director of the institution until his retirement in 1957. He had many followers, both at the School of Arts and Crafts and at his studio, creating his own school of art. Some of his students, such as Rafael Revelles and Miguel Pérez Aguilera, produced work that was aesthetically similar to that of the master. Others copied him so closely that their work has sometimes been confused with Morcillo's, as in the case of Ramón Carazo Martínez, who kept alive his technique, aesthetics and entire universe. Others, more in line with their times (such as José Guerrero and Manuel Rivera), moved away from his teachings, producing more informalist and abstract art.

In 1951, Gabriel Morcillo was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise, earning him new prestige and recognition among the Spanish political and economic elite of Madrid, whom he portrayed between 1955 and 1960. On the first centenary of his birth in 1987, the Caja General de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Granada dedicated a large anthological exhibition to the artist.

Javier Moya

 
«Homage to Gabriel Morcillo» (Granada, 1972). «Gabriel Morcillo» (Granada, 1975). «Gabriel Morcillo. Eastward» (Madrid, 1987). «To Eat or Not to Eat» (Salamanca, 2002). «Free Radicals. Gay and Lesbian Experiences in Iberian Art» (Santiago de Compostela, 2005). «Work of the Month» (Granada, 2018). «Deposit in the permanent exhibition» (Granada, 2018-). «Orientalism. The construction of images of the Near East and of North Africa (1800-1956)» (Valencia, 2020).
Vv.Aa. Homenaje a Gabriel Morcillo, Granada, Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta, 1972. José María Pemán & Rafael Revelles Gabriel Morcillo, Granada, Anel, 1975. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez & Julián Gállego Banco de España. Colección de pintura, Madrid, Banco de España, 1985. Vv.Aa. Gabriel Morcillo, Granada, Caja General de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad, 1987. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Julián Gállego & María José Alonso Colección de pintura del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1988. Javier Moya Morales Desnudo, una tradición moderna en el arte español, Granada, Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta, 2003. Vv.Aa. Radicais libres. Experiencias gays e lésbicas na arte peninsular, Santiago de Compostela, Auditorio de Galicia, 2005. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 1.