Campano’s work was also referential: when observing and painting the art of the past, he often painted d’après Eugène Delacroix or Nicolas Poussin, becoming heir to the languages that the history of art had made available. Yet Campano’s canvases d’après are never merely works “according to” the painter he was studying, but rather “following from,” and hence releasing a flight from the canon.
His works from life – d’après nature – depart from their own objective referents, too. All in all, as concerns the d’après which feeds Campano’s work, to predicate an “according to” is only possible for Campano’s painting proper. The exhibition thus can be summed up as a digest of painting according to the artist, a museum of paintings d’après Campano.
Reina Sofía
_
