La vida romántica

As the world stands today, governed solely by the principle of ‘you are what you have,’ it is only natural that artists, critics, and writers should seek refuge in the nineteenth-century spirit of romanticism in order to survive the horrors of capitalism while keeping our sensibilities intact.

Walking costs nothing, nor does observing. How dangerous we are to the twenty-first century.

We dream of cemeteries and their ruins, of having a house where we can drink tea from fine porcelain cups and think through leaded windows, where real windows connect us to our surroundings rather than screens that lead us to fictional series that filter a reality already full of filters.

Juana García Pozuelo finds peace in buildings of great beauty where she knows she would enjoy her studio, her garden and her library.

She paints what she longs for, but also what she knows through her travels and residencies in other parts of the world.

Any place is good if you can be lucky enough to pause there, to enjoy absolute introspection.

Modern life forces us to do things all the time, while romantic life gives us time to get tangled up in ideas, dreams and memories.

Money is necessary, but it is not the most important thing. How can you think that when you live in such pressing circumstances? Because we persevere by doing what we love, perhaps in a precarious way, but more real than what many call luxury. Sometimes it is that scarcity that gives you absolute freedom, contrary to popular belief: that money is the key to doing whatever you want.

The buildings García Pozuelo depicts are usually in wealthy neighbourhoods, houses beyond the reach of many, but she makes them her own. First, she turns them into delightful miniatures and then presents them as delicate jewels that a magpie could not take its eyes off.

The sparkle they give off is not due to the use of gold or special varnishes, but rather to the most romantic idea, a silence in the middle of a Chopin nocturne in which you sense that a storm is approaching.

It is no coincidence that the title of the exhibition refers to one of the paintings in the series, which is based on the image of the museum of romantic life in Paris, dedicated to the figure of Georges Sand, and which was the home of Ary Schaffer, a highly sought-after painter of the time.

This was no chance encounter during her artistic residency in the City of Light, and it undoubtedly left a mark on the artist.

I believe there is nothing more beautiful than dedicating your life to reflection and art, without expecting overwhelming financial success to turn you into a star overnight.

The star that truly shines is the one in the sky above us Kantian thinkers, while morality beats within us.

Juana García Pozuelo’s ‘La vida romántica’ (The Romantic Life) is the artist’s gift to us, encouraging us to shed our haste and take the time we need to inhabit her works and enjoy them, just as she has enjoyed them in her quests and, later, in her studio.

This magnificent exhibition is the first solo show by the artist from La Rioja at the Llamazares Gallery in Gijón.

In it, we find a feeling of grandeur that is compacted in the physical sense of the canvas, but becomes totally infinite in the eyes of any romantic.

Let us then enjoy this leisurely gaze and all that it entails.

The spirituality surrounding the longings of romantic life cannot be measured in numbers because nothing that can be quantified fills the heart as much as the love of the arts.