Conference paper

Ruiz Alonso, Rafael:

The Sgraffito in Europe - A Global Vision of an Important, Though Almost Unnoticed Reality

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The presentation summarizes the outstanding presence of sgraffito in Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary European Architecture, emphasizing its wide geographical spread, its ability to adapt to different aesthetic tastes, that have occurred over time and its great versatility with respect to artistic techniques and artistic styles.
However, there are also places in Europe where independent schools of sgraffito were developed at different times of its history, for example the Islamic period of the Iberian Peninsula. The ancient kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as southern Italy, have important and abundant examples of medieval sgraffito. The Spanish regions of Valencia and Catalonia offer the best of Baroque sgraffito at a time when mural painting was preferred in much of Europe. The Arts and Crafts movement led to the decoration of many churches in the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century. In the Soviet era, sgraffito was used for propagandistic purposes in countries such as Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Belarus and Ukraine.The paper concludes by describung the role of Europe as a transmitter of sgraffito to places in North and South America.

Das Sgraffito in Europa - Eine globale Vision einer wichtigen Realität , die nahezu unbeachtet blieb

In der Präsentation werden herausragenden Sgraffiti in der antiken, mittelalterlichen, modernen und in der zeitgenössischen europäischen Architektur vorgestellt. Die Zusammenschau zeigt ihre große geographische Ausbreitung, ihre Fähigkeit der Anpassung an verschiedene ästhetische Stil und ihre große Vielseitigkeit hinsichtlich künstlerischer Techniken und Stile.
In Europa gibt es allerdings Orte, an denen sich unabhängige Sgraffito-Schulen in verschiedenen geschichtlichen Epochen entwickelten, z. B. im islamischen Zeitalter der Iberischen Halbinsel. Die antiken Königreiche von Kastilien und Aragón sowie Süditalien haben wichtige und zahlreiche Beispiele für mittelalterliches Sgraffito. Die spanischen Regionen Valencia und Katalonien bieten das Beste an barockem Sgraffito, als in weiten Teilen Europas Wandmalerei bevorzugt wird. Die Arts-and-Crafts-Bewegung führte während des 19. Jahrhunderts zur Dekoration vieler Kirchen in Großbritanien. Das sowjetische Gebiet nutzte Sgraffito in Ländern wie Polen, Russland, Bulgarien, Weißrussland, Ukraine usw. für propagandistische Zwecke. Abschließend beschreiben die Texte die Rolle Europas als einen Kontinent, der Sgrafftio nach Nord- und Südamerika weitergetragen hat.

Dr. Rafael Ruiz Alonso studied Art History at the Complutense University of Madrid and “Wall Coverings” (Sgraffito and Mural Painting) at the School of Art and Higher Design of Segovia. Over the course of more than thirty years he has investigated sgraffito techniques and their history. In 1992, he finished his Doctoral Thesis, entitled “El esgrafiado en Segovia” (The sgraffito in Segovia); in which he showed that sgraffito was not an Italian invention of the Renaissance, contrary to the opinion of most of the international bibliography. In 2013 the Institute of Traditional Segovian Culture and the Royal Academy of History and Art of St. Quirce supported him to develop the research on “National and International Trends of the Sgraffito Work”. In 2015 he published a book about the materials, techniques and applications of sgraffito in many places of the world (“Esgrafiado. Materiales, técnicas y aplicaciones”). He is currently working on a new book about the historical evolution of sgraffito.
He has published twenty-seven books and articles on this subject; many of them can be consulted free of charge at: https://independent.academia.edu.

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DOI (Digital Object Identifier)

10.5165/hawk-hhg/453