The gentleman with the hand on his chest also stayed home...
It is clear that confinement and de-escalation have served to realize that we are responsible citizens… but also very creative. Free time, mental rest and, why not say it, boredom, have caused our brain not to stop thinking up things to do, to cook or to share.
In the case of designers and artists, deprived of these precious external stimuli, we have verified how his creative activity has been nurtured by small details that they have been finding in simple things. A eureka! of the everyday that we have to thank and that has helped us to realize that Art with capital letters has different faces.
Las Meninas appear on the balcony...
This is exactly what has happened to the young graphic designer María de la Mata Iglesias, who last June 15, on the occasion of the new exhibition Reunion that El Prado has just inaugurated, she published on Twitter a portfolio inspired by the masterpieces of the Madrid museum and quickly became a cultural trend of the social network for the enjoyment and enjoyment of those who love art and also graphic design.
She “she had been thinking about it for a week, so she wanted to do something fast, recognizable and visual, so that it would not remain just that, an idea”, confesses this graduate in Audiovisual Communication who works as a graphic designer for an e-learning company.
Mary also tells us that she was inspired by the illustrations of Pascal Campion Art, art director of Green Eggs and Ham and one of the many designers who have dedicated themselves to showing everyday scenes through balconies, and in the famous Toledan Objects store that was in front of El Prado, in which life-size sculptures of Las Meninas looked out from their balconies.
The adoration of the Magi, when these are your neighbors...
The choice of the masterpieces of El Prado, as María explains, responded more to the need to be quick and effective that to her own personal tastes, that is why she chose to place it on the windows and balconies of various contemporary buildings The knight with his hand on his chest, Las Meninas, The Annunciation and The Adoration of the Magi. As much as her favorite works are Van der Weyden's The Descent and Joachim Patinir's The Passage of the Styx.
The characters painted by El Greco, Velázquez, Fra Angélico and Rubens they were easier to take out of 'their context' so that they would travel until the year 2020 and remain confined at home. "I love the artists' ability to unify the classical and the contemporary, as Hematocritic of Art, who takes a classic oil painting and contextualizes it with current phrases, from a contemporary point of view”, explains this 25-year-old from Madrid.
The Annunciation reinterpreted by the graphic designer María de la Mata Iglesias.
Based on the good reception received this week by the four works that María de la Mata Iglesias uploaded to her portfolio via Twitter, we have verified that this artistic mix of past and present is something that people really like on social media. Which also has the Prado museum to thank, who has achieved greater notoriety when it comes to communicating its new and long-awaited exhibition Reunion (until September 13), which has involved the relocation of more than 190 pieces and evokes the existing museography when the museum first opened its doors.
The Annunciation by Fra Angélico and The Descent by Van der Weyden together for the first time, Las Meninas and Las Hilanderas sharing exhibition space… In the new normality Even works of art need dialogue, company and complicity.