Surrender of Breda Re-enacted
June 8 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian have reported on a group of re-enactors who have restaged Diego Velázquez's The Surrender of Breda in the backstreets of Seville. This restaging is meant to mark the 395th anniversary of the event alongside the painter's 421st birthday on 5th June 2020. It doesn't seem that this anniversary is being celebrated by the Dutch for obvious reasons.
The story is actually part of a larger and more worthy cause to save and transform Velázquez's childhood home in Seville. Enrique Bocanegra, the journalist and writer who is behind the project, hopes that the previously neglected building will become a destination for art lovers. The present owners are in the process of commissioning high quality reproductions of the artist's work to hang in the building. Displaying some original artwork or 'relic', to physically and spiritually reconnect the building with its former inhabitant, must surely be an essential part of making the transformation a success?
