Sometimes I have told my students in the Faculty what would happen if we had been able to hear the artists of the past give an explanation about their works. But we have fulfilled that possibility with the current artists, with whom we can talk. He gave them some examples of painters, sculptors or silversmiths whom he had met. There were always positive aspects of these explanations, either in terms of their biographies that were illustrated with anecdotes, or in relation to technical and material issues of art, in which the historian has much to learn. But I also warned them that sometimes it was better to contemplate the works and not so much to hear them talk about them. Claudia is exemplary in conversation. It not only conveys personal news that allows you to know it better than any biographical review, however extensive, and that serve to appreciate and understand your painting better. He also knows how to express what he intends in and with his art and helps to contemplate his works.
I dare to indicate, completely oblivious to any classist mood, that their university education is noticeable, what not in all those who pass through the classrooms is perceived. It is true that the mark of teaching does not depend on the student himself, but also on the teachers who taught him. There are two factors that are conducive to both. You can see the imprint of his training, which ended when he graduated in 2015 from the Faculty of Fine Arts. Then, his stay in Nancy, painting and exhibiting, and even later his fruitful residence at Villa Lena in Tuscany, which brought him close to Luca Giordano, main support for his current art. All this, together with his innate abilities, produces the magnificent intellectual and artistic development that shines his work.
It is not the first nor will it be the last among artists who have been inspired by others. The phenomenon of absorption of influences is permanent in Art and not only among the ancients, who imitated their masters or whose gaze turned to other models far in time, not to mention the enormous following of the prints. Inspiration does not prevent the production of the greatest works. Beyond mere copying or imitation, in the twentieth century, extraordinary artists have interpreted masterpieces of those who preceded them in centuries. It is not the place to make a relationship, even partial, of this phenomenon. A few years ago we published an article where we dealt with contemporary views on historical art since 1975. But we do not resist remembering now, for it is the case, the perhaps most significant example of this type of assimilation: Picasso and the Meninas.
It is not easy to explain why this simile came to mind when we observe Claudia’s passion for Luca Giordano, but it is clear that it explains many of her works of recent years, and, specifically, those that are now exhibited. The Neapolitan arrived in Spain, where he remained for ten years. It happened three hundred years before Claudia was born. Our painter discovered it in Florence before Madrid. We share the opinion of those who emphasize that it is inspired by great frescoes like those of the Giordano, but not only. Then we'll come back to it.
The work on the famous Osborne bull conceived by Manolo Prieto in 1956, so well known to countless people in Spain and even in other parts of the world, has been surprisingly manipulated by Claudia. It is an intervention that was carried out at the Barajas airport, where he presented his proposal, which was disseminated in postcard mode. The announcement of a spirit, brandy Osborne, inspired him to paint above the black bull a work full of color as suitable as the Drunks of Velázquez -better than her learned title Triumph of Bacchus-, and denotes the difference between an artist truly cultivated in a wide historical repertoire of images and of whom only possesses a superficial knowledge of such a cast. The example serves to mentally introduce the viewer in the way of doing, of painting, of Claudia, and is thus better prepared to appreciate her ability to transform the other into her own, as she has been practicing for a few years.
Magnificent examples of this way of working are the derivations of the canvas by Corrado Giaquinto, La Justicia y la Paz se besasan (Psalm 84), a work that we have explained with enthusiasm so many times in the Prado museum itself, but we do not know if it has been its colors that have attracted Claudia.
However, Luca fa presto has so far been his best source of inspiration. It seems to me that he discovered his great frescoes in the Medici Riccardi Palace in Florence and also in those of the Pitti Palace, and since then, they have been imprinted in his subconscious. Then, the vault of the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid, that great ballroom turned into a library a few years ago, has served as a workshop. There, sitting at the table like a researcher, he has drawn his sketches, which he will transfer to the canvas made with chosen fabrics. I think it has not been contradictory that the inspiration comes from huge frescoes that cover tectonic surfaces, because the works of the painter are usually large. Some interpret rooms of the palaces, but, in our opinion, are more representative those that act as variations of fragments of the ceilings and vaults. He is attracted to the great Olympic skies, with powerful blues, in which allegorical figures of mythological resonances move. We suspect that the symbolism is sobering at times – protective of the arts and sciences of the Medici palace – but it almost always seems that painting alone is enough.
Thus, with this complex genesis, a torrent of ideas emerges that translates into sometimes qualified images of abstractions. We are not sure if the term is appropriate if we apply it as it has been used since Kandinsky for more than a century. The original figuration — remnants, fragments, or details — can be identified with some effort. More than by a personal decision, it has been their reproduction through memory that has led to that impression of having been manipulated and transformed. What has remained is a distant perception of the original work that has traveled long distance before being transplanted to the new canvas.
Claudia’s current works are as diverse from the more or less reliable copy as any original. They are the very particular perception of the subject that results from the contemplation of an image, whether it be of Nature itself or of a pre-existing work out of the hands of an artificer. It is the product of an invention, accentuated still after passing through memory, distorted without intending it.
Each viewer will perceive in a different way what he observes in each canvas, despite some constants that we will point out according to our perception. First, the color. The palette is wide, although blue and white indicate preferences. The way is shining. We emphasize the movement, nothing is appreciated static, neither in the shapes nor in the color. Sometimes it would be said that the picture is like a sky populated by moving clouds where shreds of colored skies open in which incomplete and continuously variable forms are glimpsed.
Those who look at these canvases will remember those little cards of uniform color that dot the fabric. They are not only material signatures of the artist, but moving, flying fragments, subtle testimonies of the memory she keeps of that pictorial past that moved her, of that basic principle of which everything starts.
It is evident that the perception of each beholder is different as we have already highlighted. Perhaps ours, as a historian, is or pretends to be more erudite trying to discover beyond what appears before a simple glance. We do not wish, therefore, that it disturbs the gaze of anyone and makes it difficult for him to appreciate beauty beyond any explanation. Because we are sure that you will be able to find it without much effort in Claudia’s paintings.
José Manuel Cruz Valdovinos
Professor Emeritus of Art History. U.C.M.