Page 29 - Studio International - August 1965

5 Spanish Painters

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Jose Jardiel (b. 1928 in Madrid)
Jose Jardiel's drawings represent a reversion of the
customary creative process of most painters: they are
not a prelude to paintings, but the result of paintings,
their quintessence. In them Jardiel felt the need for
eliminating the sensuous pleasure of colour and
texture, for exchanging it against the stark and severe
black and white of pen and ink drawing. This elimina­
tion of colour and texture seems to have increased the
feeling of horror and of compassion-elements of every

Lucio Mui\oz Sanctuary of Aranzazu in Guipuzcoa Jose Jardiel Drawing

towards the solution of these problems.
Abstract forms gradually acquire more figurative
connotations. Lucio Munoz sees the problems of our
time, and finds it difficult to separate them from human
participation. And so there is The Window opening on
some mysterious part of the soul, there is The House,
there is the tragic Miner and the equally tragic
Martyrdom. Works of an artist who is searching for his
place in a world which has to be improved, a world in
which there should be no need for dark and brooding
pictures.
Lucio Munoz has created a style of his own, a style
that is unmistable because of its sincerity. His style. his
strong artistic personality, his unity of purpose, have
given him an important place in the contemporary art of
Spain.

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