MARCELO FUENTES

The representation of the urban landscape occupies a particular place within the history of painting. For centuries, the city appeared primarily as the backdrop or setting for a narrative. It was gradually, and especially from the Early Modern period onwards, that it began to become a subject in its own right: a space that could be observed and interpreted through painting.

In the eighteenth century, the Venetian vedute brought this tradition to one of its most recognisable moments. The views of Canaletto, Guardi, and Bellotto drew on specific places such as canals, squares, buildings, and streets to construct images of the city intended, to a large extent, for travellers undertaking the Grand Tour. Although rooted in a desire for observation and precision, these paintings were not neutral reproductions of reality. The choice of viewpoint, perspective, light, and atmosphere necessarily transformed what was being represented. Alongside real views, vedute di fantasia and capricci also emerged, in which existing and imagined architectures could coexist within a single landscape.

From that point onwards, the city would progressively become one of the great subjects of modern painting. From views of Venice to Vermeer’s cityscapes, the Paris of the Impressionists, De Chirico’s metaphysical architectures, and the great cities of twentieth-century painting, depicting a city has also been a way of reflecting on the act of looking and on how we construct our perception of a place.

Marcelo Fuentes’ work is situated within this long tradition, but from a deeply personal perspective. His paintings often begin with recognisable spaces: buildings, bridges, fragments of cities and architectural structures that, nevertheless, appear removed from any descriptive intention. The reference to a specific place remains, but gradually becomes more elusive. Architecture is simplified, contours become blurred, and colour takes on an atmospheric function, transforming what we initially recognise as a city into a more open image.

In his landscapes, we do not encounter the city as a setting for urban life. There is barely any human presence. What remains is the built environment: its volumes, perspectives, light and voids. In this sense, Fuentes shifts the focus away from what happens within the city towards the experience of contemplating it.

Apuntes para un paisaje brings together a group of works that can be understood as approaches, fragments or interpretations of these places. They are images that emerge from observation, but do not seek to fix or define what they depict. Like sketches or notes, they retain something of the reality from which they originate while leaving room for memory, imagination and painting itself. Rather than offering a specific vision of the city, Marcelo Fuentes constructs landscapes that inhabit the space between what is seen and what is imagined. The city thus ceases to be merely a place and becomes a pictorial experience: a way of looking at, remembering and reconstructing the landscape.