There have been no big announcements, no papered marquees or press conferences. Without making much noise, with discretion and humility, has opened just a few days ago in the Exhibition Hall of the Centro Cultural Galileo (Galileo Street, 39) the free exhibition of painting Apuntes de luz, a little gem that runs the risk of going unnoticed among the immensity of the cultural offerings of this city.
This is the first collective exhibition of about thirty amateur painters united by their love for the work of Joaquín Sorolla and their fascination for light: the students of the painting workshop of the Sorolla Museum Foundation.
Among the students there are people who have studied Fine Arts, but also others who have found in these classes their first approach to a canvas: “People who start painting do it with the level they have and try to do their best. And that will always be very good. There is a very wrong idea that painting is something for geniuses, but the most important thing is to get rid of fear,” says José Manuel Pascual, the teacher who has been guiding the brushstrokes of the pupils of this workshop for 14 years.
Leonor Bautista, one of his students, also had to get rid of that fear when she decided to sign up for these classes to resume her passion for art after having put it aside for three decades: “It happens to all of us, but then you stop to think about it and the first time I put on skates I didn’t know how to skate either,” she tells us.
Even so, feeling a bit of vertigo in these moments is inevitable, and the first emotion that awakens her to think that her paintings -and the part of herself that remains in them- are on view for anyone who wants to look is a bit of embarrassment.
The works of Apuntes de luz
However, as the conversation progresses, a just and well-deserved feeling of pride -more collective than individual- emerges towards what they have been building class by class and afternoon by afternoon from the gardens and the workshop of the Sorolla Museum -and since it is under construction, from the space provided by the Ortega-Marañón Foundation-.
The result now hangs on the walls of this cultural center in Chamberí, where Sorolla’s influence is not the only one that underlies the paintings. There is from a Madrid street reminiscent of a Hopper to a still life that looks like a Cézanne -from a student who does not like Cézanne at all-. Or another signed by a student related to Rosario de Velasco, to whom the Thyssen dedicated an exhibition last year.
There is no differentiation between students and teacher, who exhibits alongside his class as someone else who is still learning. When asked what he believes is the most important thing that students take away from his classes, he is left with an impression shared by many: “That it teaches you to see, it transforms your relationship with things. It reeducates the way you look at things.
Bautista agrees and, in his personal case, adds something else: “I think that everything related to art, creation, writing, music… has a very therapeutic side. So it doesn’t matter if you are good or bad at it or if you think you are good or bad at it. The thing is that if it’s good for you, then it’s worth it“.
Dates and visiting hours
The exhibition, which opened last Sunday, February 2, occupies a single room located on the second floor of the cultural center and can be visited until the 26th of this month. The opening hours are from Monday to Sunday from 9 am to 9 pm.
For those who may be interested in signing up for the painting workshop of the Sorolla Museum Foundation, more information can be found on this website.