Starting today, and for the next two months, the Royal Artillery Factory of Seville hosts the exhibition ‘Los Machado. Family Portrait’, an exhibition that has been inaugurated by King Felipe VI, who has been accompanied by the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno.
It will be the first time that the documentary collections of the Machado brothers, Manuel and Antonio will be exposed to the public, and that there will be access to photos, handwritten letters and first editions of books from one of the most important families in Spanish culture, according to explained the curator of the exhibition, the former vice president of the Government Alfonso Guerra, who has pointed out that, as a novelty, the funds from Burgos are integrated into this cultural event.
The king has toured this new cultural space, in the San Bernardo neighborhood, which brings together two hundred pieces including manuscripts, books, personal objects, photographs, drawings, paintings and video screens with various images about the life and work of both poets. The curators, Alfonso Guerra and the journalist and writer Eva Díaz Pérez, have shown him some of the most valuable documents and manuscripts, such as the original of the poem written by Antonio Machado on the death of Federico García Lorca, with corrections and ink blots. of his pen, so common in all his manuscripts.
Demolishing clichés
Alfonso Guerra has explained that the exhibition tries to demolish at least several topics that have weighed on the figure of the Machado brothers, the first of which was their separation for political reasons, which never occurred, since “they were always very united and loved each other.” a lot and they did not have any type of confrontation, at all, and they were consistent in thought, in feeling, in everything.” On the other hand, he has alluded to the idea of a supposed unequal literary quality of both brothers, since both are “great poets,” according to Guerra, who has pointed out that “they are very different; one has an extraordinary facility for writing and therefore is a poet, let’s say, lighter, but we are dealing with two great poets and that is how it must be celebrated”; and, finally, he wanted to emphasize that Antonio Machado never renounced his Andalusian roots and had plans to return until he met Leonor.
“We can be satisfied with this visit of the King because it shows that Spain is a crowned Republic”
On the other hand, Guerra has positively valued the Monarch’s attendance in Seville “to celebrate this exhibition about two brothers who were republicans, but above all they were democrats”, and has alluded to a document from the exhibition in which the Machados say that if If the Republic had arrived by an act of force, they would have been opposed to it. “We can be satisfied with this visit of the king because it shows that Spain is a crowned Republic.”
The exhibition will be open to the public in Seville from October 22 to December 22, to later travel to Madrid and Burgos. It represents a milestone for Machadon studies, since for the first time it confronts the manuscript collection of the Unicaja Foundation and the corresponding to the Fernán González Institution of the Royal Burgense Academy of History and Fine Arts, composed mainly of originals linked to Manuel Machado. It is completed with funds contributed for this occasion by other institutions such as the National Prado Museum, the University of Seville and the Municipal Photo Library of the Seville City Council.
A journey through the lives of three generations
King Felipe VI and the curator of the exhibition, the former vice president of the Government, Alfonso Guerra, at a moment during the inauguration.
The exhibition proposes a journey of the life and work of the Machado brothers through the personal and intellectual legacy of the grandparents Antonio Machado y Núñez and Cipriana Álvarez Durán, of the parents Antonio Machado y Álvarez ‘Demófilo’ and Ana Ruiz, and of the brother José Machado Ruiz; from his origins, in Seville, until the end of his days, making stops at the most significant moments of his literary production.
The curator explained that if Manuel and Antonio became such great poets it was because they grew up and were educated in an “extraordinary” family, with a grandfather who was not only rector of the University of Seville but also “the first Darwinist.” ” from Spain, as demonstrated by the natural science collections that he promoted and part of which have also been included in the exhibition. His father was the great folklorist who signed himself as Demoófilo and his grandmother was an “exceptional woman” who went around the towns collecting popular romances, although the main rarity that Alfonso Guerra has pointed out is that they were so integrated that they could write numerous works in four hands. -“It is difficult to understand, but they did it”-.
The exhibition closes with a curious old-looking machine, the one that Manuel Machado imagined for the distant future as the “Trovar Machine”, and which, in the exhibition, animated by Artificial Intelligence, is capable of writing and offering printed material on a slip. a sonnet if three words are whispered into his artificial ear.
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
