Toral conducted his lecture translated for those in attendance in Spanish.
Jose del Pino, chair of the Spanish and Portuguese department, introduced Toral as "one of the most renowned Spanish painters alive," an artist whose success is even more notable in light of his difficult upbringing in rural Andalucia, Spain, del Pino said. Despite an inclination toward art at an early age, Toral did not receive formal art education until the age of 18, when he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Seville and later studied in Madrid.
Toral spent his early career cultivating his unusual realist style, which emphasizes space, weightlessness and the concept of emigration. Images of suitcases and a lone traveler attempts to illustrate emigration are common in many of his works. He explores this idea further in his autobiography "Life in a Suitcase."
Toral said he believes emigration is an experience that characterizes humanity as a whole. The concept is especially significant for Toral, whose artistic journey led him from Spain to New York in the late 1960s.
While in New York, Toral's interest in emigration led him to incorporate new developments in space travel into his works. Arriving in New York shortly after the first moon landing, Toral saw space as the next logical step in human emigration.
In the 1970s, as a result of these experiences, Toral began to further develop his style into what he described as a "poetic" and "ethereal" interpretation of reality, which has earned him a reputation as the "cosmic painter."
Reality, for Toral, can best be described as a starting point, not a limitation. Despite his adherence to figurative art and classification as a realist painter, his work is not simply a direct reflection or snapshot of reality.
Instead, Toral takes advantage of representational style to portray the unrealistic in realistic, thought-provoking ways. Examples include an image of Jesus surrounded by mountains of suitcases and a nude body on a baggage carrousel, among many others.
"Most [artists] don't take the time to study an [everyday] object [to the extent that Toral does]," studio art minor Natalie Stoll '10, who attended the lecture, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "Although he often focuses on basic objects like chairs and crates, he gives them a lot of feeling."
Images of displacement, loneliness and uncertainty are pervasive in Toral's works. Particularly moving examples include the image of a small child sitting alone in an immense sea of luggage, as well as a recreation of Diego Velazquez's iconic "Las Meninas," in which luggage takes the place of the royal family and servants. Toral said that, in these works, the living is replaced with the inanimate in such a way that the viewer not only sees but also feels the emptiness.
After discussing his body of work, Toral ended his lecture with his views on the current direction in which art appears to be headed.
A central topic was the idea of art as a commodity. While careful not to criticize the idea of profiting from art, Toral did criticize artists for whom profit is a significant concern.
Toral stressed the importance of having an "authentic" creator behind any work of art. An authentic painter is one who stays true to his or her personality despite popular movements in art or financial motivations, Toral said.
The artistic personality is shaped by the artist's country of origin and personal experiences, Toral said, making "international" artistic styles particularly dangerous. Toral explained that the idea of one, global style negates the distinct personalities of artists. The danger of this current direction of art is, as Toral put it, the very real "danger of homogeneity" the danger of eliminating artistic variety.
Toral's view of contemporary art, however, is not entirely negative. He noted that "contemporary art's advancement is to free itself from the representation' of reality interpreting it with more freedom and imagination."
Overall, the discussion was more cautionary than critical, with the overall message that artistic variety and authenticity should be preserved.
