Original artwork description:

Motherwell intended his Elegies to the Spanish Republic (over 100 paintings, completed between 1948 and 1967) as a "lamentation or funeral song" after the Spanish Civil War.

His recurring motif here is a rough black oval, repeated in varying sizes and degrees of compression and distortion. Instead of appearing as holes leading into a deeper space, these light-absorbent blots stand out against a ground of relatively even, predominantly white upright rectangles.

They have various associations, but Motherwell himself related them to the display of the dead bull's testicles in the Spanish bullfighting ring.

Materials used:

Acrylic on masonite

Tags:

#spanish civil war #elegy to the spanish republic #abstract #woman #colorful #abstract expressionism #figurative #realism #photorealism #hyperrealism #museum #spanish #looking at art #famous #looking at painting #robert motherwell