Page 22 - ART AND NATURE IN PREHISTORY. THE COLLECTION OF TRACINGS OF CAVE ART OF THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES

juan cabré aguilóCalaceite, Teruel, 1882 – Madrid, 1947 Artist and archaeologist.He began his studies in Tortosa and Zaragoza, but soon moved to Madrid, where he completed his education at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.His rst rock art discoveries took place in 1903 at the cli of Calapatá, in Teruel, an image he described as follows: “...with a movement, expression and art that could not be improved... completely unknown in Spain and Europe...” and comparing them to “...a new expression of Paleolithic art”. ey were the rst discoveries of the currently known levantine rock art. anks to his friendship with the Cerralbo Marquis he accompanied Henri Breuil in the rst years of his activity along the Cantabrian Coast, during which he was in charge of taking photographs, a task nanced by Albert I, Prince of Monaco for the recently created Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris.His dedication took place during the years in which he was part of the CIPP as Curator of Exploration. He tirelessly traversed the whole of the Eastern coast and the South of Spain, making copies of the places he discovered. His archaeological knowledge made him appreciate the objects as a whole and explain them within a general context, instead of analysing them as individual objects. He left the Commission in 1917 to devote himself to archaeology. e legacy left by Cabré at the MNCN is of close to a thousand works, both drawings and paintings, in addition to his publications in several CIPP monographs.francisco benítez melladoBujalance, Córdoba, 1883 – Santiago de Chile, 1962 Artist.He started studying painting in Seville and moved to Madrid at the age of 23, where he studied with Joaquín Sorolla. Sorolla’s portraits had a great impact on Benítez Mellado, with whom he consolidated his realistic style.He participated in the 1906 national exhibition, where one of his oil paintings received an honourable mention. Back in Córdoba, he met Mateo Inurria and Julio Romero de Torres at the Academy.He returned to Madrid in 1915 and after succeeding in a competitive examination he became Artistic Assistant to the Commission of Paleontological and Prehistorical Researches, where he worked with Cabré for two years. He was so fascinated by rock art that he ended up giving up his work as a painter to devote himself to the Commission. He was responsible for the execution of most of the plates exhibited at the MNCN collection, with di erent styles and on di erent scales, among which his numerous full-size, or even larger copies included in the vertical composition of the Letreros cave, stand out. He often went to the sites once copied by Cabré, but had to wait until the end of the French campaigns in order to visit other places like Cantabria, which is one of the reasons why some places such as Altamira are not as well represented in our collections as we would have liked.commissionartistsart and nature in prehistory. the collection of rock art tracings of the mncn022