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"Whenever I have painted a portrait, what attracted me was the embodiment of the human figure going from the physical resemblance to the spiritual content. For me, a portrait has never been an artifice of the person depicted. I preferred the simpler clothes, without adornments or trinkets. I tried to talk to the model to get to know him and to be able to translate his character, his simplicity and strength, his energy, either positive or negative.
I also like to include portraits of friends and relatives in my large murals, as a symbol of love and friendship.
I started to seek information, dates and names of all the people I have painted in my artistic life. And I was amazed by the amount of work accomplished. I have never considered myself a portrait painter in the style of Ricardo Macaron, Enrique Segura or Revello de Toro. I have tried to list the portraits by date, canvas measurements, and by cities where they were painted, and I've also included those from the murals."
This enormous list of portraits, names and dates is the following: List
Here there are presented several portraits painted by Castañer. Some of wich we only have black and white photographies of:
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As my father, Ramón, explained to me, what has always worried him when painting figures on church domes, was that these domes do not have a plane surface and it is necessary to prevent the figures from "falling down", to use his words, by taking into account the curvature of the space and by searching for the best situation for all possible views from the ground.
UA general view of the ‘Mural de la Festa’. It is possible to zoom in on the figures here. Among the 55 figures, 43 of them are portraits of friends, relatives and people involved in Alcoy festivities and the Salesians. In addition, there is a self- porrait of the painter. If you look closely among the figures at the bottom it’s possible to make out the shadows of feet on an imaginary curb that actually exists further down, giving an incredible three-dimensional illusion. In the dome, Saint George raises a beam of light.
We have some close-up photographs with details from several portarits. Some of these details were take from the very scaffold during the mural painting:
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