Mónica Yoldi /// Pasado y tradición en la obra de Bill Viola

It might be said that throughout history art has evolved by drinking from the fountains of the past every so often. And it seems inevitable that styles and techniques that were in decline re-emerge to breathe life into new ways of conceiving art. The Renaissance is a good example of this, as it reintroduced the concepts and canons of Classical Greece, which would reappear again, some centuries later, in Neoclassism.

Spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Bill Viola (New York, 1951) is a clear exponent of how tradition can become a starting point for contemporary art. His work displays references to the Gothic and Renaissance traditions in the form of frescos and paintings depicting religious content, conjuring up old masterpieces dealing with transcendental themes such as death, birth or the passage of life. Bill Viola states, “In general, an avant-garde artist is defined as one who breaks away from tradition. I would say that if you create images you form part of the tradition”.