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ANTONIO NAVARRO
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Antonio Navarro is in love with the light of his Levantine land and the enormous appeal of women. He uses these two elements to create a distinctive pictorial symphony. His women send us a message of calm, serene beauty from their canvases. We have to encounter painters like this from time to time who are away from any avant garde, to reconcile ourselves with a way of understanding art. Art which is certainly anchored far from the present moment, but that leads us to a world composed of harmony, which conveys a simple message: that of a man submerged in the colors of life, living his own mystery in the light of the Mediterranean sea.
Antonio Navarro´s painting is a marvel of delicacy, light, daydreams and, ultimately, beauty. His artworks, painted with a spectacular impressionist realism, immerse us from the first peek in an unreal, utopian world, in a happy Arcadia through which he masterly guides us .
In each of his paintings the artist offers us three different dimensions; first the landscape, an environment in which nature lush is shown as in an eternal spring. After that, a small still life with flowers, fruits, precious objects, and in the center of the composition, presiding over all, there is a figure of a beautiful woman of modest gesture who you should look at with your eyes half closed to avoid being injured by the flood of light on the artist's canvas.
Navarro's paintings are saturated with color, but miraculously, his splendid palette achieves a balanced effect which never seems to be excessive. The artist achieves harmony through the mastery of contrast. His artworks are similar to natural landscapes, where nothing is out of place. So his its flowers are like fireworks, they only seem to rest in wicker crafted baskets ,but it seems like at any time they may take up a miraculous flight beyond the flat surface of the canvas.
And women, the romantic women of Antonio Navarro. Nameless women , ageless, anonymous people who live outside of time, ethereal beings contained in their own circumstances, who belong to a dream, the same dream where they live. Maybe at first glance we may think that women forming the pictorial harem of the artist are simply used as elements beyond the composition, without further significance than flowers, trees or objects. But if we stop and observe them in depth, we will realize that each face, each figure hides a story. These women give their figure to the painter, but keep to themselves, after his half closed eyelids , stories of love, suffering, mystery ...
Navarro began achieving success in his artistic career by painting rustic characters, men and women who were field farmers or ranchers. Then he went through a stage in which children were his main source of inspiration and now devotes his brushes to paint almost exclusively women. 'But this is not definitive by any means, any day I may completely change the arguments, just as my painting style evolves too'. 'Until some time ago I tried to stick to the more traditional forms but I'm slowly transitioning to Impressionism, a style that allows me to capture the beauty of the Mediterranean light, the light within us who have been born in the Levantine coast', he says.
The figures of Antonio Navarro, almost never look at viewer. And that fascinates us. The eyes of the beholder are not usually confronted with those other eyes that are the subject of our interest. the exchange of glances is not possible: the viewer can not pass, as much as he tries, the virtual paradigm he contemplates. And that fascinates us even more.
Everything suggests that the world shaped by Antonio Navarro is beyond the limits of our everyday world, those limits of us, which are so absolutely known to us that sometimes they lack any interest for us. Because of that, the worlds of Antonio Navarro are so fascinating, and they also seduce its inhabitants, because they are not available to us, because they promise us new realities.
His is a mesmerizing magical realism. And everything is always in favor of extolling the human figure, which is the center and goal of his unquestionable compositions . In the spotlight: detailed, meticulous, perfectionist, warm ... human; after him, backgrounds that enhance, emphasize the figure without diverting the attention of the beholder; another canvas; light and color to praise the true protagonist: the person.
Beautiful flowers, beautiful women and evocative depictions of children: these are the main elements present in the iconography of Antonio Navarro. Once again, the massive power of their colors and easy trace of the drawing stand out.
Navarro is one of the great classics of modern Spanish painting. In his first paintings he reinvents impressionism and adapts it to the light and the grounds of the Mediterranean coasts. White walls covered by many flower bunches, and always, in the background, the blue line of the old sea. Navarro, in these bright landscapes, includes most of the times figures of women. His mysterious women, who are of great beauty, integrate in nature and under no circumstances look directly at the painter. They are females who seem to be deeply concentrated in their thoughts, living the moment from within, creating poetry with their mere presence.
The combination of landscape and figures makes the canvases of this singular artist to be full of vigorous romanticism and to become splendid samples of the best impressionism. But there is more. Sometimes, the painter decides to include some fruits in the smooth surface of the canvas , which become stunning still lifes and add another verse which the pictorial poetry brings us. Still lifes that add a chapter to the story that is sensed behind many wise strokes. The artist achieves harmony through the mastery of contrast. In his paintings it happens the same as in the passing of time over natural landscapes, where everything fuse together and works at an aesthetic level. There is nothing superfluous or lacking in the virtuous compositions of Navarro.