Notes
"SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE"
Version of the work with the same title painted in 1883 by Martín Tovar y Tovar.
Arturo Michelena, along with Cristóbal Rojas and Martín Tovar y Tovar, is considered one of the great three masters of Venezuelan painting in the 19th century. Michelena is, according to Venezuelan poet and critic Fernando Paz Castillo..."the most delicate and lyrical of painters due to the diversity of his inspiration." Arturo Michelena was born in Valencia, capital of the Carabobo State, Venezuela, on June 16, 1863. He died in Caracas on July 29, 1898.
Michelena was the son of the army officer and painter Juan Antonio Michelena. His mother, Socorro Castillo de Michelena, was the daughter of the famous painter Pedro Castillo, a favorite artist of a former president and celebrated hero of Venezuela's independence, General José Antonio Páez. Castillo painted a series of works portraying the battles fought by Páez. Michelena's mother, Socorro Castillo, had a refined taste and was also a passionate lover of fine arts. Other distant relatives, although not so well recognized, were practicing artists.
It was in the artistic environment of his home, surrounded by many beautiful paintings and prints, and constantly supported and stimulated by his mother's affection, that Michelena's artistic vocation was awakened and nourished at an early age. Michelena was a child prodigy who learned to draw almost at the same time as he learned to read and write. At the age of 11, he was already able to create drawings, not those of a child but those of an artist. A self-portrait from this period is included in the museum dedicated to his work. His father, Juan Antonio Michelena became the artist's first drawing and painting teacher. But, despite his formal artistic training, he was mostly self-taught. His grandfather, the painter Pedro Castillo, also contributed to Michelena's artistic training. During this early period, Michelena produced illustrations for a costumbrista book by writer and researcher Francisco de Sales Pérez.
In 1883, upon the grand celebration to commemorate the centennial of Simon Bolívar's birth, Arturo Michelena exhibited two of his recent works in Caracas, The Allegory of the Republic, which exalted the importance of the decree of April 1870 which made public education free and compulsory in Venezuela, and The Surrender of the Victorious Flag of Numancia, which was shown next to Girardot's Death by Cristóbal Rojas and The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, by Martín Tovar y Tovar, in the main hall--the most important place--in the great salon of Venezuelan art. At this time, Michelena received a medal of honor for his works, met the principal artists participating in the exhibit and viewed their works. He was impressed by Tovar y Tovar's Declaration of Independence, which he decided to re-interpret soon thereafter. To do so, he prepared several sketches and sought to identify the signatories of the declaration in order to ascertain the accuracy of the faces, comparing those painted by Tovar y Tovar with the ones previously painted and drawn by Juan Lovera in his great work on the same subject, The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, which Lovera had personally witnessed.
Between 1883 and 1885 Michelena painted The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, faithfully re-interpreting Tovar y Tovar's work.(1) He executed this painting in Caracas, directly observing the original by Tovar y Tovar rather than following the sketches he had previously drawn. A viewer, versed in the comparative study of his works, will certainly notice the subtle differences between the interpretation by a young artist such as Michelena and the original work by a mature painter in his fifties such as Tovar y Tovar. Tovar y Tovar's maturity contrasts with the exalted inspiration that is characteristic of Michelena's youth. On the other hand, Michelena's rendition differs in its technical execution, coloring, as well as in its expressive content, which would later come to characterize his rich chromatic variations and the classicism of his serene mature compositions.
The young Michelena was very expressive and enthusiastic upon seeing The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by Tovar and Tovar, next to his own work at Bolívar's centennial exhibition. This profound sentiment was felt as well by all the visitors at the time and continues to be shared by generations of Venezuelans who have continued to admire Tovar y Tovar's masterpiece. Indeed, that is the reason, Michelena immediately accepted a commission to execute a rendering of the work he so admired.
The first Venezuelan painting illustrating this historic event--the declaration of independence--was executed in 1883 by Juan Lovera; he had painted the momentous events of April 19, 1810 which led to the proclamation and the signing of the declaration of independence only three years earlier. Lovera's work July 5, 1811 was of historical importance because it was the first visual testament of the founding events of the Republic. Fully aware of the great documentary significance of his work, Lovera drew from his experience as a portraitist and faithfully represented each of the provincial representatives who signed the document declaring the country's independence. In the lower part of the painting, in a carefully drawn image, all the signatories are included and identified by name. Because he personally witnessed the scene represented in his work, Lovera had met all the participants in the signing of the declaration. He knew some of them previously because he had painted their portraits. If Juan Lovera had not painted July 5, 1811, the faces of most of the signatories would have remained unknown. As historian Alfredo Boulton asserts: "In all of Venezuela's art history there is no document with similar importance. Without Lovera those heroes would have died and their faces remained unknown." For this reason, Martín Tovar y Tovar had to base his work on that same event of July 5, 1811 on Juan Lovera's painting.
Michelena, in order to execute his work on the same subject, used both references available starting by faithfully re-interpreting Tovar y Tovar's work while at the same time, verifying each one of the figures recorded in Juan Lovera's work. These differences noted by critic and art historian Alfredo Boulton are related to the architectural backdrop but not to the veracity of the event and its participants. As well, Tovar y Tovar who had met the representatives of the Congress of 1811--was still alive during the period the artist lived in Caracas between 1845 and 1850, and between 1855 and 1880. In critic and art historian Enrique Planchart's opinion, Martín Tovar y Tovar "is venerated in Venezuela, in particular, because of his work The Signing of the Declaration of Independence."
"Arístides Rojas, with whom Tovar shared his personal recollections, tells us how the artist for some time, had been thinking about a painting in honor of the independence hero Francisco de Miranda. In order to execute it, he chose the Assembly of Venezuela's Constitutional Congress celebrated July 5, 1811, during which the Declaration of Independence was signed. (2) The admiration that Tovar y Tovar felt for Francisco de Miranda echoes similar feelings with Arturo Michelena and which Michelena subsequently expressed in his masterpiece Miranda en La Carraca, a painting that remains indelibly engraved in the nation's collective memory as no other work in the history of Venezuelan art. The figure of Miranda is depicted with great emotion in The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by Arturo Michelena. "A painting on the subject of the declaration of independence, a work with which several generations learned to love their national heroes, due to Michelena's majestic composition, spatial perspective, and the statuesque poise of the figures--our School of Athens--a quasi-Raphaelite model of Olympian grandeur." (3)
One of the sources of inspiration for Venezuelan artists was the tradition of historical painting in the United States, as well as prints, and paintings on the history of France during Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras. "Bolívar's deeds and influence explain why a great part of Venezuelan art in the 19th century sought its subject matter in history and heroic legends. Was Bolívar also not present in European Romanticism? Byron christened the vessel in which he intended to sail to freedom for Greece--Bolívar? Bolívar inspired pages of the most lively Romantic prose by travelers or European writers who describe the dramatic days of our independence." (4)
The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by Arturo Michelena, although a re-interpretation of the work by Tovar y Tovar, appears to be fairly representative of Michelena's painting: "eclectic in its choice of subject-matter--as Pierre Reni Famelar argues..."even when official art is its main source of inspiration." Michelena was also extremely sensitive in his treatment. Eclecticism and ease characterize his work, but do not constitute its essence. The true originality of his paintings resides more in the vigor stemming from its Latin American origin than from a sensibility open to the European influences of the moment." (5) When Arturo Michelena returned to Venezuela after studying in Paris, he received heroic accolades in Caracas and Valencia. His works were shown in special and prestigious venues in order to accommodate a large public who admired them with the greatest interest and took their children who would remember them forever.
Professor Perán Erminy, Art Historian and Critic, Caracas, 2006.
(1) This work was on public view at the Museo de la Casa de los Celis, Valencia, Venezuela from 1971 to 1991.
(2) E. Planchart, La Pintura en Venezuela, Imprenta López, Caracas, 1956.
(3) M. Picón Salas, Las formas y las visiones, Monte Avila, Caracas, 1954.
(4) Ibid.
(5) P. R. Famelar, Michelena, su obra y su tiempo, BID, Caracas, 1989.
No. 1-Josef de Sata y Rossy
No. 2-Manuel Plácido Maneyro
No. 3-Francisco Pol Ortiz
No. 4-Luis José Casorla
No. 5-Juan Bermúdez
No. 6-Manuel de la Cova
No. 7-Isidoro Antonio López Méndez
No. 8-Juan Antonio Díaz Argote
No. 9-Francisco Hernández
No. 10-Juan Tovar
No. 11-not identified
No. 12-José María Ramírez (not numbered in painting)
No. 13-Juan Germán Roscio
No. 14-El Marqués del Toro
No. 15-Francisco Javier de Urtariz
No. 16-José Antonio Rodríguez Domínguez
No. 17-Luís Ignacio Mendoza
No. 18-Francisco Javier Yánez
No. 19-Martín Tovar Ponte
No. 20-Francisco Isnardi
No. 21-Manuel Palacio
No. 22-José Gabriel de Alcalá
No. 23-Francisco de Miranda
No. 24-Juan J. Maya
No. 25-Fernando de Peñalver
No. 26-Antonio Nicolás Briceño
No. 27-Ramón Ignacio Méndez
No. 28-Ignacio R. Briceño (not identified)
No. 29-Felipe Fermín Paúl
No. 30-Juan P. Pacheco
No. 31-José Ángel Álamo
No. 32-Gabriel De Ponte
No. 33-Nicolás de Castro (not numbered in painting)
No. 34-Lino Clemente
No. 35-Juan Nepomuceno Quintana
No. 36-Francisco Maíz
Please note that no. 13 in the picture is incorrectly identified as Juan Germán Roscio. It should read Marqués del Toro.
Please note that in the essay the correct date of the work by Juan Lovera is 1838.
