Lot Essay
Self Portrait, (1953) is one of Claudio Bravo's earlier works painted in Santiago de Chile, while studying at the Colegio San Ignacio, with Miguel Venegas Cifuentes. Here, the tecnique taught was the copying of old masters paintings and drawings. 'I was always having to make perfect copies of the masters. It is something that has stayed with me..' but Bravo does not exactly copy...'It is something more, the painting is a concept....paintings are a whole mental process. In the end, after going through several stages, the painting begins to function. But always up to the very last moment you are altering your first idea....'(1)
His famous Bachanal (1936) (sold at Christie's in May, 1998) is full of symbolism and figures, which have been inspired from works from the old masters. The present picture is inspired directly from Pablo Picasso's Saltimbanque au Chien, 1905, and belongs to his classical figure period. Bravo has inverted the figures and transformed it to a self-portrait. Whether this painting is interpreted as father and son portrait or as man and boy portrait, is left for the viewer to decide.
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His famous Bachanal (1936) (sold at Christie's in May, 1998) is full of symbolism and figures, which have been inspired from works from the old masters. The present picture is inspired directly from Pablo Picasso's Saltimbanque au Chien, 1905, and belongs to his classical figure period. Bravo has inverted the figures and transformed it to a self-portrait. Whether this painting is interpreted as father and son portrait or as man and boy portrait, is left for the viewer to decide.
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