King Theobald II

“Finished with the mindless imitation of visible reality; finished with feeble, archaic, and empty decoration, and finished with that false, sentimental, and swooning mysticism! I hope we will achieve a transcendental objectivity out of a deep love for nature and humanity.” I think that this thought by Max Beckmann in some way defines the personality of Antonio.
Antonio Urra Eslava, like Renaissance man, is multifaceted in his artistic expression. A prominent engraver and painter, tireless researcher of plastic resources of line and stain through the analysis of the nature, he has achieved his own style.
A day arrived when he wanted his way of doing things to be three-dimensional and he thought that, with regard to aesthetics, there was no dividing line between painting and sculpture. As a sculptor, he works the physical mass and space as totally sculpturesque plastic elements. On the other hand, his way of conceiving the artwork is as free as that of a painter. There is no conceptual difference between painting and sculpture.
With Rey Teobaldo Antonio Eslava kindly participated in the exhibition Sculptors on the Campus of the Public University of Navarre. The sculpture, which was subsequently acquired by the University, is located inside the Library building.
In this work, the author acts as explained by Leonardo: “The usual and appropriate means that the sculptor has to carry his work to term is to proceed to a detailed study of all the profiles of the forms of the figure, seen from all positions, to establish satisfactory contours.” This requirement was incontrovertible. In addition, Eslava managed a successful application of the canon of the human figure and the combination of physical matter with matter imagined by the viewer.
The presence of the insinuated and the real, of mass and space, of the natural and the manipulated, stone and iron, result in a delicate work of art that can be contemplated from any point of view.
Josep Blasco i Canet