In his painting Santa Cecilia – El Oído, Spanish artist Sigfrido Martín Begué pays tribute to the patron saint of music.
Santa Cecilia – El Oído, Sigfrido Martín Begué (Image courtesy Mar Estrada)We know this is Santa Cecilia as the artist has her seated at the organ, an artistically accurate way of portraying her. Everything about this work tells us we are contemplating sound. The dog is an apparent reference to the 1898 image of “Nipper” from the Victrola gramophone ads. Notice the ear canals inside the gramophone and the five mouths articulating the vowels. Sigfrido’s use of imagery is rich in detail.
Santa Cecilia is considering all the sounds in the room. Is she focused on the same sound the dog hears? Or is it the sound from the singing mouths when she touches the keyboard? Like the saints in the other paintings from this series, she wears a Balenciaga inspired dress.
About Santa Cecilia
Santa Cecilia (died c. 176 AD) originated in Rome, Italy. She was the daughter of the Roman nobility. She pledged her virginity to God. Eventually, Cecilia wed a man named Valerian out of family obligation. Having “sung in her heart to God” before her wedding, Cecilia explained to her husband that her guardian angel would harm him for defiling her virginity. Her husband asked for proof. After his baptism, he too saw the angel. He became a martyr before Santa Cecilia met her demise. After an attempt to suffocate her in the baths, someone tried to behead her unsuccessfully. She survived the severe wounds to her neck for three days. As legend has it, her body was later uncovered entirely intact. She is the patron saint of music.
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The Art of Sigfrido Martín Begué
Sigfrido Martín Begue, c. 1989 (Photo courtesy Mar Estrada)Sigfrido Martín Begué’s art is surreal and futuristic at the same time, drawing upon painterly techniques of Italy and Spain’s neoclassical painters. Sigfrido Martín Begué’s art is surreal and futuristic at the same time, drawing upon painterly techniques of Italy and Spain’s neoclassical painters. His work embraces modern and contemporary societal themes while deploying deeply-rooted Christian symbolism and metaphors. The artwork style recalls De Chirico and El Greco with a post-modern twist. Sigfrido’s figures are often elongated and stylized, and the color palette is bold in places and muted in others. His sense of humor and irony is evident in almost every major work.
Sigfrigo’s portfolio included his pencil drawings to large-scale oil paintings executed with the precision of his Spanish predecessors. His paintings fit into big contemplative themes, from Los Automátas to Las Máquinas. All of the dresses depicted in the series were inspired by the fashion designs of Cristóbal Balenciaga, who opened his first clothing boutique in 1917 in San Sebastián, Spain.
Artist Series Available for Collectors
Santa Cecilia – Begué’s (1989) was one of a series of five paintings about the senses in the exhibit Máquinas. Produced by Galería Mar Estrada, the exhibition was a solo show of Sigfrido Martín Begué’s most grandiose paintings. Máquinas was a tour-de-force display of the artist’s prolific technique. His images demonstrate fluency in history and in-depth knowledge of saints. Evident is a passion for fashion and a fascination with technology. He loved architecture, composition, and design, which are second only to his command of artistic symbolism.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the exhibit Máquinas, a few signed and numbered silk-screens of Santa Cecilia – El Oído are available for purchase.
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