Madrid,
Only a few days after the closure, in room 60 of the Villanueva building, of the exhibition dedicated to the treatment by José de Madrazo of the matter of the political oath and its symbolism, under the influence of its mentor Jacques-Louis David and the Greco-Roman statutee 2006, the exhibition “Change of form: myth and metamorphosis in the Roman drawings of José de Madrazo”.
It consists of drawings and portraits that this author, who was the first artist director of the Prado, dedicated to mythological metamorphosis while he was exiled in Rome and in a time, that of the beginning of the 19th century, in which Napoleon expanded his empire in Europe and Goya portrayed the fragers of the War of Independence in Spain; This theme, therefore, would allow him to reflect on the broadest of the transformations at a time when they happened and in dialogue with both past teachers, such as Mengs or Rafael -from the first prepare the museum an anthology -as with the artists and concerns of this moment.
Two groups of works, of original uncertain destination, focus this presentation: probably selected issues essays to be recorded (one safely), as they share technique and format, and compositions as a means of projected points to decorate specific spaces, perhaps some stay of the palace in which Carlos IV resided in the convent of San Alejo, in the Aventine, one of the seven hills on which Rome was built; In that palace there is evidence that this Santander author worked. In both and others, he addressed mythological themes, such as the dispute between Apollo and Cupid, from a personal approach that gave an account of his erudition. He even incorporated his beloved mythology into a genre in elusive the theory like that of the portrait: in which he made Josefa Tudó with his children -she was a lover and then Godoy’s wife -her figures appear as Aphrodite, Eros and anteros worshiping a bust of which he was a favorite of Carlos IV. Madrazo is also portrayed in this exhibition: from his mysterious black silhouette, his lithographic portrait and his photograph, each corresponding to a different moment of his life; These images will affect both their attention to emerging technologies – in this photo – and their tendency to experimentation, as in their zero fear of becoming the axis of those studies.
He compatible it with his avid reading of the classic texts, which allowed him, not only to represent myths, but to reinterpret them from their own vision and attending to their wide knowledge of the history of art: their constant cult references establish ties with the last pictorial tradition and with their contemporaneity.
The circumstance that an issue like that of metamorphosis interest both of Madrazo, always attentive to adapting its style to the circumstances of each moment and the demands of its clients; It would probably have to do with his symbolic relationship with his own capacity for reinvention as an artist and, of course, with that scholarship that marked the set of his production.
“Change form: myth and metamorphosis in the Roman drawings of José de Madrazo”
National Prado Museum
Paseo del Prado, s/n
Madrid
From March 10 to June 22, 2025
