Visiting the Bellas Artes in Seville is a pictorial experience for tourists visiting the city, art lovers, but also for locals eager to learn more about the city’s art plans. It is one of the most important art galleries in Spain but visiting it will elevate your day for many other reasons. The paintings in the Museo de Bellas Artes, yes, but also the building itself, the former Convento de la Merced, is of unusual beauty.
There are many good things that invite you to come to the Plaza del Museo, such as the sunday art market that livens up the mornings in the neighborhood. You won’t be able to resist either, to discover the best art galleries of the city. In the meantime, the classics are always infallible encounters.
1. Portrait of George Emmanuel by El Greco (1603)
This imposing portrait is the only work by El Greco kept by the museum and in the 19th century it was thought to be a self-portrait of the painter.
The current focus is on Jorge Manuel, the only son of El Greco, who was dedicated to architecture, sculpture and painting.
2. Seville in festivities, Bacarisas (1915)
This beautiful modernist-influenced painting stands out for reflecting the beauty of Seville through the spotlight on the three discreet ladies preparing for the party of a lifetime.
Undoubtedly, one of the most lively and picturesque paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville.
3. Portrait of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Domínguez Bécquer (1862)
If there is a painting from the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville that has impregnated the imaginary of literary portraits, it is this one illustrating Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.
It is enough to look at this work made by the writer himself to know that Romanticism was a dark and passionate as well as melancholic time.
4. Las Cigarreras, Bilbao Martínez (1915)
The painter perfectly illustrated an emotional maternal scene, while reflecting the working conditions in the Tobacco Factory (now the Rectorate) and the camaraderie among all the workers.
5. The Temptations of St. Jerome, Valdes Leal (1657)
St. Jerome writhes in pain so as not to be tempted to look at the courtesans who are engaged in provoking him. In fact, the Bible and a skull in front of him reinforce the message of chastity until death.
6. Saints Justa and Rufina, Murillo (1666)
The two saints appear holding the Giralda, since it was believed that in the earthquake of 1504 the Cathedral and the Giralda did not collapse thanks to their divine intervention.
7. Vanitas, Gysbrechts (1660)
One of the best painters of the Flemish school of the 17th century created this sinister still life that warned those who saw it about the vanity of glories and the fleeting nature of pleasures.
8. Dancer, Antonia La Gallega, Zuloaga (1912)
The Basque artist Zuloaga was closely linked to Andalusia and in this painting he paid homage to the Andalusian woman, representing the dancer as someone with character and authority.
9. St. Hugo in the refectory, Zurbarán (1598-1664)
This work, made for the sacristy of the Charterhouse of Santa María de las Cuevas in Seville, narrates the miracle that took place in 1084 in the Charterhouse of Grenoble.
This miracle happened on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, when St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, sent them meat. The friars spoke of remaining in abstinence forever, until they fell fast asleep in a sleep that lasted forty-five days.
With the visit of St. Hugh they awoke to find that the flesh had been transformed into ashes, a miracle that confirmed that they should follow even more a life dedicated to austerity.
10. The death of the teacher, Villegas Cordero (1884)
This solemn painting from the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville is, despite the appearance of the image, one of large dimensions. It presents the dramatic scene in which the bullfighters are moved around the figure of the master who has just been caught by a bull.
Undoubtedly, it is a essential work in which you must stop to see the small details that the work houses.