From 10 October until 26 January, Room XXI in the Museum of Romanticism will be hosting an exhibition of work by Antonio María Esquivel (Seville, 1806-Madrid, 1857), one of the great painters of Spanish Romanticism.
Antonio María Esquivel trained as an artist in Seville and was greatly influenced by the Baroque school before going on to become a leading light on Madrid’s art scene. Much sought after for his work as a portrait artist, he also cultivated religious themes with great success and was considered the most important religious painter of his generation.
Within the Romantic movement, painters regularly took on commissions destined for worship, but, beyond any dogmatic and indoctrinating intent, the religious genre also progressively gained prominence in academic spaces. The creative process for large-scale composition painting was a more challenging intellectual exercise and so it was greatly esteemed.
Esquivel was a trailblazer in this area, focusing on less common themes and introducing iconographic innovations. In addition to devotional works, the artist painted large-scale compositions of religious stories and themes, mostly taken from the Old Testament. Works intended for public exhibition and created as academic exercises that could also serve as a model for artists in training.
Image credits:
Antonio María Esquivel, “Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert,” 1856. Museum of Romanticism
