Portraiture At 21, Bravo began doing portraits in Concepción, Chile, and quickly gained many commissions. He saved his earnings and bought a ticket aboard the Amerigo Vespucci to sail to
Paris. The trip, however, was very stormy and Bravo got off at
Barcelona and made his way to
Madrid where he stayed. Bravo established himself in Madrid in the 1960s as a society portraitist, gaining recognition for his astounding ability to create
verisimilitude. His ability to depict complex objects and shapes is reminiscent of
Velázquez. There was even a dress designer, Balenciaga, whose dresses had a Renaissance quality to them. Bravo made women of nobility purchase one of Balenciaga's works before he agreed to do their portrait. A year and two months after his arrival, he was already painting
Francisco Franco's daughter. His interest in
Renaissance and
Baroque works came from his many visits to the
Museo del Prado in
Madrid where he admired paintings done by old Spanish and Italian masters. Specifically he was inspired by
Diego Velázquez for his light effects,
Francisco de Zurbarán’s cloth studies,
Juan Sánchez Cotán’s still lifes,
Juan van der Hamen who popularized still life painting in
Madrid, and
Luis Egidio Meléndez who had great technical skill in using light to depict texture. In 1968, Bravo received an invitation from President Marcos of the Philippines to come and paint him and his wife, Imelda Marcos, as well as members of the high society. He spent six months there doing portraits and traveling. Bravo found that the quality of light there was more intense than in Spain or Chile and it transformed how he painted while there. He held an exhibit at the Luz Gallery in
Manila where he displayed over 50 works.
Package paintings With
Spain under
Franco’s rule, most art was constrained to his ultra right-wing policies. Bravo’s portraits appealed to the conservative public, but he became frustrated with the lack of intellectual values concerning art. His art shifted one day when his three visiting sisters brought home some packages and left them on the table. He was fascinated by their forms and the texture of the paper they were wrapped with. Bravo’s first exhibit in Spain, at the Galería Fortuny in 1963, had all types of paintings, including these new package ones.
White and Yellow Package, painted in 2005, is a good example of Bravo's continuation of the parcel series. One of the first things to catch the eye is his use of ''
trompe-l'œil'', a technique from the
Baroque period meaning "to deceive the eye", used to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. This painting style is similar to his approach to still lifes and helps to emphasize the tactile qualities of the paper. The way the package fills the frame elevates its status in a similar manner to what
Pop art was doing in the 60s when he began. It also abstracts the package, almost breaking it into clean color blocks, if it weren't for the string keeping it contained. This abstraction is similar to
Rothko’s paintings that employ fields of color and encourage almost a meditative state. While similar to modern movements,
White and Yellow Package also mimics the old masters and their use of draping cloth. Bravo's use of light is similar to that of
Caravaggio, an Italian
Baroque painter who used a dramatic lighting style called
tenebrism to highlight a climactic moment and to bring attention to the front plane by concealing the background in darkness. Many of
Caravaggio's works were spiritual and Bravo's
Catholic upbringing left him with interest in themes of ritual, mystery, spirituality, death, and the idea of saints. This connection is made obvious through the title of one of his pieces,
Homage to St. Theresa, also oil on canvas painted in 1969. A subtle reference to commercialism lingers in the simple fact that it is a parcel, but the mystery of what the paper conceals seems to be more important. The package is teasing the viewer by slowly opening up and while the internal structure is hinted at, it will never be revealed. In this painting, the act of teasing also becomes sexual, reinforced by the color scheme that resembles an egg - a symbol for rebirth and fertility. Overall,
White and Yellow Package showcases his ability as a painter and is a mix of contemporary imagery done with traditional values. ==New York==