Claudio Bravo: Paintings and Drawings

From Library Journal
Critical opinion of this Chilean-born realist ranges from "vulgar" to "compelling." Those in the latter camp will be pleased with the more than 200 crisp and luminous color reproductions of Bravo's sensuous landscapes, still lifes, and proto-Renaissance figure paintings rendered with startlingly deft technical virtuosity. Unfortunately, finding a particular illustration by title is problematic, as the index of works is not alphabetically arranged. The introductory essays by literary notables Bowles and Vargas Llosa are also disappointing, curiously set in large type, and do more to add to the artist's mystique as an ascetic living in Tangiers than to explain his place in 20th-century art history. A more substantive and authoritative text is provided by Edward J. Sullivan in an earlier, much slimmer monograph (Claudio Bravo, 1985. o.p.). Nevertheless, the many gorgeous plates, together with a good bibliography, biographical data, and listings of exhibitions and collections, make this a worthy purchase for libraries with an interest in 20th-century or Latin American art.?Heidi Martin Winston, NYPLCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Rare is the living artist accorded the respect inherent in a volume as luxurious as this, but Bravo is exceptional on many levels. A Chilean by birth, he rode the wave of early success as a society portrait painter to Spain, where his dazzling technical skills and aristocratic mien earned him even greater fame and fortune. A decade later Bravo moved to Tangier, Morocco, where he lives on a fanatically pristine estate maintained by servants who, in addition to everything else, pose for his classically inspired paintings. More than 200 color plates are presented here, glossy paintings of meticulously arranged objects and human figures, and they all possess a strange anti-beauty, an artificiality and aura of privilege and decadence not unlike that of high fashion photography. Mario Vargas Llosa, one of two contributing essayists (the other is Paul Bowles), alludes to a "dental cleanliness" and "an inflexible, mysterious order" in Bravo's life and work, and, indeed, the artist's devotion to control and refinement is disconcerting, rendering his work both palpable and elusive. Donna Seaman


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Critical opinion of this Chilean-born realist ranges from "vulgar" to "compelling." Those in the latter camp will be pleased with the more than 200 crisp and luminous color reproductions of Bravo's sensuous landscapes, still lifes, and proto-Renaissance figure paintings rendered with startlingly deft technical virtuosity. Unfortunately, finding a particular illustration by title is problematic, as the index of works is not alphabetically arranged. The introductory essays by literary notables Bowles and Vargas Llosa are also disappointing, curiously set in large type, and do more to add to the artist's mystique as an ascetic living in Tangiers than to explain his place in 20th-century art history. A more substantive and authoritative text is provided by Edward J. Sullivan in an earlier, much slimmer monograph (Claudio Bravo, 1985. o.p.). Nevertheless, the many gorgeous plates, together with a good bibliography, biographical data, and listings of exhibitions and collections, make this a worthy purchase for libraries with an interest in 20th-century or Latin American art.Heidi Martin Winston, NYPL


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