Rome and Velázquez.

Roman cultural interferences in the evolution of his style

Abstract

Our professional practice, as well as the close friendship we have maintained over the years with Juan María Montijano, evokes us to relate him to the figure of the great baroque painter Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and the two journeys he made to the city of the popes. Thus, and saving the logical differences, we can draw a certain parallel with the experiences of both of them in Baroque Rome.

Unlike Velázquez, whose palatial obligations at court limited his freedom and forced him to return with relative haste, Montijano, despite his commitment to teaching at the University of Malaga, was able to establish a long sequence of Roman sojourns that would span the rest of his life. It is in this sense and thanks to the greater ease and speed of means of transport that we can attribute greater fortune to the Sevillian painter, who had the opportunity to spend more time with and become more familiar with all the vestiges of the Eternal City.

We have long been interested in assessing artists' journeys and their itineraries or stays insofar as, on many occasions, they capture the experiences they have had in their works, just as we, from our journeys and/or stays, keep in our subconscious images and sensations captured. Sooner or later, and in an unconscious way, we repeat or rework them. They are what we understand as cultural interferences.

Like Velázquez, Juan María Montijano was seduced by the Roman spell. All of us have been enriched by these experiences and, in some way, they have been reflected in our writings, in our teaching and in our research.