The Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife (PAG) and the “la Caixa” Foundation have organised a Lectures in which the impact of the Nasrid Monumental Complex on the work of Henri Matisse will be analysed. The series of lectures will be held at two locations, at the CaixaForum in Madrid, from 17 to 19 January 2011, and at the Palace of Charles V in Granada, from 16 to 18 February 2011. At this last mentioned location you can also visit the exhibition Matisse and the Alhambra (1910-2010). The admission to this event is free until full up the limited number of places.
The lectures will recreate the history of the fascination Matisse felt for the Oriental world, which in terms of his biography is coinciding partly with the transcendental encounter his visit to the Alhambra at 11 December 1910 would mean to him.
Among the outstanding experts will participate María del Mar Villafranca, PAG Director, and Francisco Jarauta, Full Professor of Philosophy, University of Murcia, who will chair the series of lectures, as well as Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, General Curator of the Heritage of France, Tomas Llorens, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum chief curator, Kosme de Barañano, Full Professor of Art History, Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Spain, and Tatiana Pigariova, Cultural Manager at Moscow’s Cervantes Institute. Villafranca and Jarauta are also the curators of the exhibition, which is open to the public until 28 February 2011.
The event will deepen the knowledge about the relation between Matisse and aesthetics and Islamic art, about the painter’s creative talent from a certain artistic experience, which is strongly rooted in cultural heritage and a mix between tradition and modernity, history and avant-garde. The artistic repertoire of the Islamic art is being adapted and transformed by the artist and always present in his work.
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