This is a superb marble sculpture by the artist from Valencia, whose extensive, broad-ranging work is a benchmark of twentieth-century Spanish sculpture. Alfaro’s practice is defined by a highly rewarding tension of opposites which sometimes lean towards

A movement in art, literature and music which advocated a return to the harmony, simplicity and balance that defined Classical Antiquity. In the arts, it emerged with the Renaissance, when it became the new aesthetic canon in the quest for perfection, and was the prevailing movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the appearance of

A cultural movement born in Germany and the United Kingdom in the late-eighteenth century, as a reaction against the Enlightenment. It extolled the expression of feelings and the search for personal freedom. It spread throughout Europe, with different manifestations depending on the country. In painting, Romanticism reached its peak in France between 1820 and 1850, replacing Neoclassicism. It main purpose was to oppose the strictures of academic painting, departing from the Classicist tradition grounded in a set of strict rules. Instead it advocated a more subjective and original style of painting. Its main formal features are the use of marked contrasts of light, the preponderance of colour over drawing and the use of impetuous and spontaneous brushwork to increase the dramatic effect. Its greatest exponents were: Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) in Germany; John Constable (1776-1837) and J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) in the UK; and Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) in France.
, it entered into decline until it gradually lost all traction with the advent of the early avant-gardes in the twentieth century.
and other times towards baroque.
His earlier pieces, developed in the context of the
a collective promoted by Vicente Aguilera Cerni which included artists, architects and critics from Valencia with the goal of renewing the art made in the city and connecting it with international movements. Its members included Andreu Alfaro, Eusebio Sempere, Joaquin Michavila and Salvador Soria. In 1959, the group was renewed and started publishing the magazine Arte Vivo, which released a total of four issues which tell an interesting history of the art of the time. The group disbanded in 1961. together with great artists such as Eusebio Sempere (1923-1985), Salvador Soria (1915-2010) and Joaquín Michavila (1926-2016), acknowledge the influence of art informel, after which he gradually evolved towards geometric

an art and architecture movement born in 1914 in Russia which became known particularly after the October Revolution. The movement defends an active engagement of the artwork with its surrounding space. The term was first used by Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) in 1917 to contemptuously describe a work by Aleksander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and it did not have a positive connotation until the
Realist Manifesto from 1920.
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In the 1980s, after twenty years devoted to abstraction, Alfaro brought his
generatrixes to a close and opened up to new influences. He started out on a new path, turning his attention towards traditional sculpture. This piece, which opened a new creative period, was made at a time when his work was receiving recognition by academic institutions, most notably Spain’s National Visual Arts Prize in 1981.
Stylistically, the artist was influenced on one hand by ancient sculpture, particularly by the Greek

singular kouros, are sculptures from the Ancient Greek period (ca. 650-500 BC), typically made with stone. They normally represent athletic, nude, hieratical male figures with inexpressive smiles, seen straight-on from the front. Their rigidity, emphasised by the position of the arms extended downwards with clenched fists, is altered solely by one leg slightly advanced, in a reticent effort to suggest movement.
, which he held in great admiration. On the other hand, he was attracted by the great Italian masters of the late Renaissance and Baroque, like Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). As far as the material employed in his works is concerned, he usually worked with stone, thus reaffirming its use as a constructive element in sculpture. In fact, many of his works were created in white and pink marble and limestone, conceptually opening up a new path in which he explored issues of volume, weight and quality of surface. For Alfaro, stone is the material that best expresses a sense of immutability.
In
Amazona II, Alfaro used a pink marble from Portugal which he sculpted into the shape of a geometric and stylised body. The piece is delicate and subtle, simplified with curved lines that outline the head, torso and leg, which is noticeably advanced, suggesting a figure in motion.