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El fondo, los destellos de luz y las nubes construyen un ambiente casi apacible y
onírico, que junto a los paños y telas que llevan las brujas, recuerdan a los mantos
clásicos y por su movimiento al tratado de la tela durante el barroco. Luis Ricardo
Falero fue un artista poco conocido en España por su inclinación al desnudo, a
pesar de esto se popularizó en Inglaterra, Francia y Estados Unidos, actualmente
la pintura se encuentra en una colección privada.
Falero, L., (1878), Brujas yendo al Sabbath, óleo sobre madera, colección privada
AGC
Witches going to Sabbath
Within the representations of the occult, dark beings, and gloom, many of the great
protagonists are witches. The painting Witches going to the Sabbath or The Vision
of Faust (1878) by the Spanish artist Luis Ricardo Falero (1851 - 1896) is a great
example of this. The scene that is formed from what looks like a storm of naked
witches composing a coven, generates a cathartic experience that empathizes with
the feeling of ecstasy felt by the characters within the painting.
Falero exhibits a spiral composition that gives his work absolute dynamism and
invites the viewer to join the coven presented in it. The witches' disposition also
refers to beginnings and endings, as the representation of the snake that eats its
tail in an infinite cycle, the age of the witches shows us the path between youth and
old age, as the old witch who escapes from death and pursues the life of a young
woman that in a few years will take her place.
The several characters represented in the painting, aside from helping to give
rhythm to the composition, are symbolic elements that tell us about the mysticism
and esoteric practices that witches were typically known to perform. Among these,
in the center of the painting, below the witch who stares at the viewer, is the billy
goat, an animal representation of the devil or evil, a figure that refers to the pagan
god's cult of fertility. We can also find a black cat, a reptile, the skeleton of a
pelican, brooms where the witches fly, death, and a bat that covers the moon, an
image that also appears in the painting The witches' festival (1880) by the same
artist. Something interesting about this painting is the appearance of a man or
warlock who accompanies the witches in their ritual, a character that usually does
not appear in the portrayal of witches' covens.
The background, the flashes of light, and the clouds create an almost peaceful and
dreamlike atmosphere, which together with the cloths and fabrics worn by the
witches, are reminiscent of the classical cloaks and their movement to the
treatment of the fabric during the Baroque. Luis Ricardo Falero was an artist not
well known in Spain due to his inclination to paint nudes, despite this he was
popularized in England, France, and United States, currently the painting is in a
private collection.
Falero, L., (1878), Witches going to the Sabbath, oil on wood, private collection
AGC