The San carlos Academy Bestowing Prizes on its Students

In the first half o f the XIXth century, the classicism which had previously held sway in European and American art, deriving from Greco-Roman origins, was beginning to give way to a romanticism that favored passionate emotion over static rationality. However, as late as the second half of the said century, when other disciplines had abandoned classical tenets, classical themes and forms continued to prevail in the sculpture department of the San Carlos Academy. The present high-relief -executed in plaster by Juan Bellido and awarded third prize in the composition-study class at the Academy's VIIth Exhibition in December of 1855 - bears witness to the aforesaid institutions continuing adherence to the Classical style that had prevailed in the West since the second half of the XVIIIth century. On the left, an enthroned matron wearing a tunic and sandals and with a diadem on her head, executed in a style suggestive of ancient classical friezes, personifies the Academy, while, on the opposite side, balancing the composition, is a small temple. Between these two areas are four youths bearing the tools pertaining to each of- the disciplines taught at San Carlos. The first of these figures is holding an engravers burin, the second a sculptors mallet, the third a painters palette, and the fourth -who is bowing as he receives a crown of oak leaves from the female figure in recognition of his devotion to teaching— an architects set square. Thus did Bellido, one of the most outstanding students of the Catalonia-born teacher, Manuel Vilar, play his part in the task of defending the exalted qualities of the Academy against critics. This work passed to the MUNAL from the National San Carlos Museum in 1982, becoming part of the former institutions founding endowment.