Setdart presents an exclusive collection of Russian icons, never seen before in Spain. A set made up of more than seventy pieces, witnesses of times that have crossed borders to finally reach our room making history.
Setdart brings a collection to the broad public for the first time through the online format, exhibitions at our headquarters and this same catalog, highlighting some unpublished pieces. Using digital tools, Setdart reveals the thoroughness and spirituality applied by icon painters creating these masterpieces.
The graphic work encompasses a great diversity of techniques developed over the centuries that take us from the oldest, such as woodcut that emerged in China in the 7th century, to the most modern such as photoengraving.
The image of women has been studied and defined throughout history through art, literature and even science, the prototype of the “femme fatal” being one of the most deeply rooted in our cultural imagination. The construction and definition of this stereotype was born in the 19th century from the hand of literature and art where this perception of women as a perverse, demonic and seductive being that leads its male victims to perdition, spread and imposed in all spheres of society.
During centuries, portraits have fascinated generations of art lovers, conveying faces that would otherwise have inexorably faded over time.
By definition, the portrait is the representation of the physiognomic features of a person, created through different means of expression such as painting, sculpture, photography and literature.
Does this mean that when we look at a portrait, we are seeing the actual effigy of the person’s features? To what extent is a portrait a free interpretation agreed between the subject and the artist of the reality to be portrayed?
Since ancient times, art has used symbolism to express an infinity of concepts and feelings hidden under the physical appearance of everything and everything around us. In this sense, the symbolic charge of the floral world will acquire a special relevance in art, being the object of the deepest moral, religious, political and social reflections. Her own nature, beautiful, fleeting, delicate and joyful, captivated the gaze of countless artists who, whatever their time and style, found in them the metaphorical image with which to convey messages of a very diverse nature. The richness of its meaning will evolve and oscillate over time depending on the historical context, but also on the intention of the artist himself.
We often find simplistic definitions of Levantine Luminism, interpreting it as a Spanish translation of French Impressionism. A more in-depth look at the Valencian landscape phenomenon and at different points on the peninsular coastline, as it developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, offers us a somewhat more complex panorama.
Although it is true that the Mediterranean light and the Levantine beaches impressed the painting a plain air of Valencians and Barcelonians (the Sitges School would be the second major focus of Luminist painters) with their own face, marked by a palette of intense whites, golden glitters and sparkling blues, Spanish luminism is not a mere local adaptation of the impressionism of the neighboring country .
In fact, the Valencian luminism and the Sitges luminist school are rooted, on the one hand, in the realistic tradition of Ramón Martí Alsina and Carlos de Haes, and on the other, they drink in the landscaping of the Barbizon school, being also the figure of Mariano Fortuny a key reference
The rise of mass consumption would forever transform the concept of art. Until the 1940s, avant-garde art had been associated with conceptual or expressive depth, and was destined for the delight of an elite cultured. Despite wanting to be anti-bourgeois, many breakthrough movements end up being highly elitist, an art for initiates.
Pop Art, although it was born in England (the starting gun was given by Richard Hamilton with his humorous collage “What makes today’s homes so different, so funny?”), It was in the USA that it found its ideal habitat to grow.
The creation of the Masriera firm in the mid-nineteenth century was a before and after in the field of artistic jewelry. Behind its exquisite results, materialized in exceptional jewels, there was a long journey carried out by its founder, Luis Masriera, who focused his intense training on investigating the new technical possibilities of materials, as well as exploring new creative channels to transfer the modernist movement to jewelry.
Iconography is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting branches in the history of art: etymologically referred to the language of icons, without it we would not be able to distinguish who is represented in a work, especially when it comes to medieval, Renaissance or Baroque works. . Figures are often recognizable by their accompanying attributes or objects, which to the attentive eye unequivocally indicate who they are.
In order to help our customers and fans better understand the characters in our works, we are providing you with this short guide to build a critical opinion.
The holidays are coming and with them the moment to enjoy all those plans that we have been waiting for for a long time. Among all of them, cultural leisure will always be a great option to escape from our routine, traveling through art to bygone eras and multiple geographical enclaves. From Setdart we encourage you to spend a vacation full of art with a selection of some of the most interesting exhibitions that this summer’s cultural agenda offers us within our borders.
On numerous occasions, Salvador Dalí declared that eroticism was a divine thing, inseparable from mysticism, since Eros was a god . The genius of Ampurdán immersed himself fearlessly into the realm of erotic drives and the Oedipal traumas involved in them.
One of Dalí’s drawings that Setdart gathers in his ongoing auctions contains several sketches of erotic content , showing anatomical sections, masturbations, male figures related to Greek satyrs, and female forms metamorphosing into chickens. In the same role, the central place is occupied by a preparatory study for the painting “Living Still Life” (1956, kept at the Dalí Museum in Florida). Many elements already appear in this sketch that will be present in the final canvas: a series of objects (bottles, knives, fruits or spheres) levitating on a table, moving at will or according to Dalí’s interpretation of the atomic laws as they were being formulated by quantum physics, which so fascinated the surrealist painter. Dalí called this plastic research “nuclear mysticism”.
The work of Juan Barjola, despite the fact that he went through different creative stages, was always traversed by a tragic feeling of life, which was translated into paintings pregnant with dramatic intensity.
La Rioja Alta, SA is one of the most admired wine brands in international markets. The winery based in Haro (La Rioja) appears for the first time in 2021, in the list “The Worlds Most Admired Wine Brands” which is published annually by the prestigious magazine Drinks International including the most prestigious firms in the world.
Just before traveling to Mali for the first time, while living in Paris in 1985, the Mallorcan artist made a series of still lifes (among them, the one that Setdart is putting up for auction on this occasion), where his willingness to get rid of the motley is appreciated. chromatic and formal from its previous stage, foreshadowing the thirst for the desert (physical and metaphysical) that it will satisfy in the African country. In this still life belonging to the Parisian period (lot 35118235), the monochrome predominance of ocher and earthy tones seem to presage the direct irruption of mud and river sediments on the canvas with which he will experiment in Mali.
During the period of the Second Republic, poster design experienced a golden age under the guidance of Antoni Clavé. The cinematographic posters that the Catalan artist made between 1833 and 1835 represent one of the greatest milestones of the national and international avant-garde in this field. Proof of this is the original poster made for the movie “The constant nymph”. The very gouache of more than two meters that wore more than 80 years ago in the lobby of the mythical Capitol cinema in Barcelona, announcing the premiere of the film, will be tendered in our contemporary art auction on July 27
In the history of Japanese art, Leonard Foujita is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious international figures. Belonging to the so-called School of Paris, Foujita marked the art of the twentieth century with his ability to hybridize Western artistic modernity with Eastern tradition as no other Japanese artist had done so far. His style, of exquisite refinement and sensitivity, will be featured in the auction on the 27th, with an outstanding preparatory drawing of the splendid canvas “Amitié” belonging to the collection of the Pompidue Museum in Paris.
Javier Mariscal became a important part of our culture because his creation of Cobi, the iconic figure that accompanied us in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. However, the artistic dimension of the one who is one of the most charismatic characters in contemporary Spanish culture , goes far beyond this friendly dog whose design became the most profitable in the history of the Olympics. Stripped of this simplistic vision, we discover a surprising work in which, among multiple disciplines, techniques and supports, Mariscal has built an artistic identity that is as unique as it is recognizable.
The iconography of the Virgin with the Child as an independent genre underwent an unprecedented renewal by the hand of the Sevillian painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.Although the Marian theme knew a deep devotion in Spain in the seventeenth century, it was rarely treated in painting as an independent painting. Murillo revolutionized the approach to the subject of Maternity both by the plastic treatment and by the model of women that he introduced.
Between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century, a new aesthetic and ideological movement emerged in Italy that would permeate the artistic and literary production of the peninsula and the entire continent.
The Baroque conquered the European courts with its approach so far removed from earlier Mannerism: a triumph of invention over imitation, a celebration of emphasis and strangeness, a clear intention to surprise and impress, in stark contrast to Classicism.
The spectacularity sought by this movement is expressed to a large extent with impressive and sumptuous ceilings decorated with frescoes. – The goal is to amaze the viewer and fool their eyes, using illusionistic painting to recreate three-dimensional effects. The architectural barrier thus becomes a springboard to represent a scene halfway between reality and fiction, creating unreal spaces that mix earth and sky (like the ceiling of the church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome painted by Andrea Pozzo ).
Thanks to the cinema and television, some shoe models have become authentic references in the history of fashion, becoming a collector’s item.
An icon among icons, Manolo Blahnik’s designs are considered an international benchmark. This was confirmed by Carrie Bradshaw when she showed her great love (even obsession) for the Blahnik in the series “ Sex & The City “Since then, who has not dreamed of having a” Manolo “?
Not only Carrie Bradshaw fell in love with these shoes: Madonna, Beyoncé, Anna Wintour, Michelle Obama or Rihanna, among many others, blindly trust the canary, wearing their designs on red carpets and international events.
The European colonial expansion in North Africa during the 19th century was decisive in the desire of many artists to travel and explore an unknown world. From the representation of their landscapes, customs and conflicts arose the so-called orientalist painting, a genre with its own personality within nineteenth-century art, passionately cultivated by great masters such as Eugene Delacroix, Dominique Ingres or Mariano FortunyAlong with this conquest, the success of travel literature, the desire to find novel pictorial themes and the adventurous spirit that characterized them, led many artists on a journey to the dreamed paradise that they assimilated in their works with the recreation of an Orient. Exotic and captivating. Proof of this is the selection of works that on July 15th we offer in our oriental art auction.
“The best thing about a photo is that it never changes, even when the people in it do” Andy Warhol.
The king of pop art par excellence, Andy Warhol, anticipated several decades with his famous Polaroids to the explosion of social networks, which, like Instagram, have become a true symbol of our era. In the same way, Warhol turned his iconic portraits into a valuable account of the social environment that accompanied him throughout his career, immortalizing the brightest stars of the moment with his inseparable Polaroid camera. This is the case of photography (35175118) that next July 5 we present at our auction, where Warhol manages to capture the essence of the maturity of one of the great legends of the classic Hollywood screen, such as Lana Turner
The relevance of Warhol’s facet as a photographer within the development of his artistic personality is completely unquestionable, as shown the more than 100,000 snapshots he took throughout his career . His love affair with photography begins around 1962 when the artist acquired his first Polaroid Big Shot camera . Fascinated by the advantages that photography instantly offered him, Warhol began to almost obsessively register everything around him, be it everyday objects, race riots, or the faces of the most famous people of the moment. Since then, he used his camera as if it were a preparatory work, being, as he himself stated, his particular pencil and paper with which he gave birth to a large part of his artistic corpus. In this way, his Polaroid became a fundamental tool in the process of making a later work that he often turned into screen printing. In fact, some of them, like Marilyn Monroe’s, have gone down in the history of contemporary art as true icons that are already part of our cultural imaginary .
5 REASONS COLLECTORS LOVE PATEK PHILIPPE
Patek Philippe collectors are not like other watch collectors. They don’t like to attract attention, which is why they love the understated elegance of Patek Philippe. Simply put, Patek owners know they have the best of craftsmanship, tradition and design on their wrist. So it’s a good idea to know the five reasons that make collectors love Patek Philippe.
José Guerrero has established himself as one of the fundamental references of contemporary Spanish painting. His career, as intense as it is personal, shows us the incessant experimentation and continuous evolution of an artist who, even shortly before his death, continued to create with the same dedication, with which he achieved success and resounding recognition in the United States.
His homeland, his link with Federico García Lorca or his American adventure, are just some of the events that profoundly marked the future of a professional career, intimately linked to his life experiences. After more than six decades dedicated to art, there are countless events, curiosities and anecdotes through which we can discover the true artistic dimension of José Guerrero
The relevance that the circus world acquired between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century is reflected in art through an extensive cast of artists who, attracted by the bohemian and eccentric spirit of the circus, they wanted to capture the essence of this wonderful and cathartic visual spectacle that at that time, and especially in Paris, had become one of the great epicenters of social life. From the most identifying iconographic motifs of the circus imaginary to the most disparate emotions that its characters embody, the so-called greatest show in the world was undoubtedly an inexhaustible source of inspiration and experimentation in the development of the artistic avant-garde