|
Sebastian Capella
(taken from an article by Jonathan Seville)
Sebastian Capella is a superb
contemporary Spanish artist who has resided in San Diego, California for over
40 years. He was born in Valencia,
Spain, where he received lengthy and thorough academic training at the Superior
School of fine Arts. There, the
traditional course of study and Capella’s remarkable native talent combined to
produce what one might call a modern 17th-century master. His command of classical drawing and of
the representational and
coloristic techniques of oil painting in that great period of Spanish
art was – and remains – of the highest order.
With his restless and
explorative character, however, Capella could not stay content with a manner
that, however splendid, ignored several hundred years of the subsequent history
of painting. He has expanded his
own style of brushwork, palette and treatment of the painting’s surface, its
sense of space and light, and its expressive freedom, although never abandoning
his commitment to the represented subject. Throughout these stylistic metamorphoses (which continue to
this day and which often return upon themselves to re-explore earlier manners),
Capella’s paintings invariably exhibit the artist’s passionate determination to
render the visible world in its freshness, its richness, its vitality and its
truth.
He is widely known for his
splendid portraits, (reminiscent in their verisimilitude and their brilliant
technical execution, of the 19th century portraiture) of a great
many San Diegans. But at the same
time he has remained very much a European artist, and very much a Spanish
artist. Returning to his native
country regularly, he has painted many important members of society, including
members of the Spanish royal family. (from an article by Jonathan Seville)
Sebastian Capella still teaches
private classes in his La Jolla studio and has a loyal following of gifted
students.
|
