Page 350 - Arte e Historia

Danilo De los Santos
From a pioneer course…
Five decades of art
A 1900’S MASTERPIECE:
«THE MOOR»
BY ARTURO Grullón JULIA
Arturo Grullón Julia was born in 1869, in Santiago
de los Caballeros, a village from Cibao where he spends
his first years of family preparation and schooling. At a
youthful age he moved to Santo Domingo, pursuing a
higher preparation. José María de Hostos was his teacher
at the first Teacher Training School in the country. He
also took Drawing and Painting classes under the guid-
ance of José Fernandez Corredor, a Spaniard painter and
creator of one of the first Academies opened in Santo
Domingo. Graduated in 1884 as part of the first group of
Teaching trainees; he received the following year, 1885,
an award on an art exhibition. This very fact placed him
as part of the national art precursor generation. In light lón Rodríguez Objío, his wife since 1909, assisted him
of his strong inclination for painting; he was sent to
France at age 17, to study at a well-known institute in
Paris. His leading professor was the painter F. Domingo.
From this fact might derives the conclusion that, the
anatomy studies included on his artistic studies, ushered
him to a medical vocation, his raison d’être side by side
with the pictorial one. ropean art in general, advocating for a local art based
Arturo Grullón started Medicine studies at age
25, attending different university institutions in Alger
and Paris from 1894 to 1902 but never abandoned his
artistic production. Proof of that is his painting «The
Moor» awarded first prize on a Parisian exhibition in
year 1900.
«The Moor» is considered a masterpiece due to its
technical realization, its thematic exoticism and its pre- traits; a Juan Bautista Gómez landscape entitled «Casas
ponderance compared with relevant historical pieces
from other Dominican authors, as well as among the
Banco Popular art treasures. It is a categorized portrait
of an executed arabic man, during the painter’s Algerian
period around 1897, date of a «Algerian landscape» in
which, easy and precise brush-stroke prevails. In «The
Moore such commands flow, defining physiognomy,
gesture and a mannish body pose, a very tanned face
and a beduins costume crowned with a turban. The
chiaroscuro surrounding the figure, give strength to
the composition’s main plane, where the ability in us-
ing the pastel spectrum on its own way, remind us of
Eduard Degas, the exceptional Impressionism’s master.
Arturo Grullón grew as a painter during the French Belle
Epoque period.
FIVE REPRESENTATIVE PAINTINGS
FROM 1923-1939
With the exequátur received in 1903, Arturo Grullón
started practicing a s a doctor in Santiago city, marking
the start of the Dominican surgery, working with patients
with organic deformations, to whom he used to take pic-
tures before and after treatment. Filomena Amalia Grul-
with the corrective scalpel. When Arturo Grullón gradu-
ated from Gynaecology in 1925, still grumbled about the
lack of time to focus on painting.
At that point on time, the members of the Postumist
literary movement, declared their opposition to the Eu-
on insular features as the light sparks. Juan Bautista and
Celeste Woss y Gil; two educated artists, take on the edu-
cational work in Santo Domingo and Santiago, where
Jorge Octavio Morel (aka Yoryi) was a novel revelation
on the artistic field. The three were pre-dated by Abe-
lardo Pineyro García, who was born on the contradictory
period of the Spanish annexation.
Yoryi Morel’s paintings including various self-por-
de la Calle Sánchez,» and Celeste Woss y Gil’s «Retrato
de Mujer,» conform the 1923-1939 period representative
group of painters and pieces. Included as well, «Bode-
gón» by Abelardo Piñeyro, created most probably some-
time on the 1930 decade.
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