Réminiscences des maîtres anciens et éléments modernes dans le réalisme de Claudio Bravo

At the beginning of his career, Claudio Bravo became known as a portraitist of the jet set people. Yet, to reduce him on these activities would not do justice to him. In fact, he was a neo-realistic painter with many facets. His trompe-l’oeil paintings showed that Bravo was fascinated by form and texture of the represented characters or objects. The artist tried in same way to give the signs of reality a metaphysical presence: Conceptually significance should go beyond their outward appearance. Just as his technique, his paintings become statements of perfection. Compared to his contemporary mainstream fellows, his approach was somehow an anachronism. He borrowed iconographic content or image composition from famous artist of the past such as Rafael, Caravaggio, Velasquez, Titian or Manet, in order to transform the appropriations with his hyper-realistic technique into a modern version, stating a touch of timelessness, due to the sobriety of the decoration and time neutral garment of the protagonists. He had also formal affinities to photo- or hyper-realistic US-painters of the 1960s such as Estes, Close and Goings or even the American illustrator Rockwell. His package wrapped subject paintings were obviously inspired by the smaller cloth enveloped and tied up objects of an early Christo. Pop artists gave also inspiration with their representation of banal consumer objects. However, Bravo did not share the message of the pop artists, who were critical time spirit oriented reporters of popular consuming routines in a society that was switching more and more to futility and sometimes vulgar communication. This lack of a deeper message, going beyond celebrating the aesthetics of super-realistic representation, was pointed out by many art critics, committed to a more contemporary view on art. When Bravo painted a pop icon like a Coca-Cola bottle or a moto-sport helmet, his inherent interest focused on the fidelity to the outward appearance and conceptually on a metaphysical sublimation of its mere physical presence.
The research deals with the above mentioned questions and discusses whether the approach of Bravo was simple epigonism or an authentic renewal of realistic painting.