Return to Figuration in the 20th century

Return to Figuration in the 20th century, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,  Madrid.  

Very few paintings here, but I thought this was an interesting section in the Museum's collection.                 

Europe in the 1920s and 1930s witnessed far-reaching experimentation towards a return to figuration and Western tradition, a 'return to order', to use Jean Cocteau's expression. At the same time highly nuanced abstraction developed.

Some artists considered this return to figuration as a critical overhaul of the artistic past. Others saw  it as an artistic, historicist and nostalgic regression representing a genuine dissolution of historical avant-garde movements.

Rosario de Velasco, Adam and Eve, 1932

Alfonso Ponce de Leon, Self-Portrait, 1936

Modesto Ciruelos, Cyclists, 1933

Mateo Hernandez, Bather, 1925

Angeles Santos, A World, 1929

Salvador Dali, Girl at the Window, 1925