Homage to Aert van der Neer 向阿爾特・范・德・尼爾致敬

Dazzled by the twilight of 17th-century painter Aert van der Neer’s Moonlit Landscape with a Road beside a Canal (1645–1650), contemporary Spanish artist Alberto Reguera created twenty-three paintings as an homage to the celebrated artist of the Dutch Golden Age. Each of Reguera’s paintings display an in-depth study of the representation of light and sky in the European tradition of painting, while engaging in a dialogue with Van der Neer’s Moonlit Landscape. The sensitive depiction of light in the night sky most inspired Alberto Reguera, in part because of the similarities to his own work. This new series of paintings examines and connects directly to Van der Neer’s masterpiece, and the important painterly achievements of the Dutch painter’s generation.

The exhibition and accompanying publication is the second collaboration between the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) and Alberto Reguera. While the first exhibition Blue Expansive Landscape (2015) was notable for the display of the painter’s two- and three-dimensional works, and his innovative ways of painting beyond the canvas, Homage to Aert van der Neer is a similarly complex endeavour that has been achieved through a successful partnership with UMAG, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and the artist.

Alberto Reguera (Segovia, 1961) is a Spanish artist currently based in Madrid for whom travelling—across Spain and abroad—has become a way of life. For more than three decades, he has developed exhibitions which, through the medium of painting, explore the relationship between space, diverse subject matters and layers of visual depth.

A graduate in Modern History from the University of Valladolid, he moved to Paris to attend the contemporary art seminar L’Art du XXème siècle (École du Louvre). He also took part in the Actual Art Workshops at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, with contemporary masters such as Lucio Muñoz. Similarly, he was influenced by another of the most iconic of Spanish artists, Rafael Canogar, who selected Reguera to participate in a joint exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville, Spain, as part of the Relevos project (2002).

When he first began to show his paintings in Asia in 2007, he had already started to build up the layers of volume, which by then were moving towards the medium of sculpture. A clear indication of this is the Sculpture Square of Singapore staging his project Beyond Form, which he subsequently presented at the City Hall of Hong Kong in 2010. In 2012, he moved beyond the limits of the canvas when he created, during a stay in Shanghai, two large expansive paintings for the CEIBS organisation for display in a building designed by I.M. Pei, where he then became artist in residence.

In 2015, the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), The University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with the Spanish Consulate in Hong Kong, organised an exhibition with a selection of Reguera’s artworks that were made from 2001 to 2015, entitled Blue Expansive Landscape.  

當代西班牙藝術家艾拔圖・雷古拉傾慕於十七世紀荷蘭畫家阿爾特・范・德・尼爾（1603–1677）名作《皓月河旁徑》，畫中黃昏月照使他迷醉不已；為了向這位荷蘭黃金時代名畫家致敬，便創作了二十三幅油畫，每幅都是他對歐洲繪畫傳統描繪光線與天空方法的深入研究，及一次與范・德・尼爾《皓月河旁徑》的對話。范・德・尼爾的畫作最打動艾拔圖・雷古拉的，也是他對夜空中的月光那敏感仔細的捕捉，大概是因為與這位當代畫家自己的作品有相似之處。雷古拉這全新油畫系列源於對《皓月河旁徑》的研究，呼應著這名作、以及與范・德・尼爾同時期畫家在畫法上的成就。

這次展覽及出版是香港大學美術博物館與雷古拉的第二次合作。第一次名為「藍色擴大風景」（2015），展出了他的平面和立體作品，展示了他怎樣把繪畫擴大到畫布以外的空間。「向阿爾特・范・德・尼爾致敬」同樣是一個複雜的項目，由香港大學美術博物館、提森-博內米薩國家博物館，以及艾拔圖・雷古拉本人三方伙伴合作促成。