Javier Hermida

A WILLING SURRENDER

Jorge Luis Borges left us with an unsettling thought: “All negligence is deliberate, every casual encounter is a meeting, every humiliation is a penance, every failure is a mysterious victory, every death a suicide.” He was mainly referring to the misfortunes that can befall a person and which, according to the writer, are preordained by the individual themselves. We might not agree with such a deterministic view of fate, but the brilliance of his language is overwhelming and, though indirectly, compelling: one cannot deny something so beautiful. I don’t want to dwell on misfortunes, but I do want to talk about destiny, and so I would dare to add: “Every decision is a willing surrender.”

Let me explain. There was nothing intentional or premeditated about my devotion to landscape painting, especially in watercolor and specifically of Alcalá de Guadaíra, the central focus of the collection presented to you in this section. I returned to Alcalá at the age of eight, after spending my childhood in La Roda de Andalucía, a rural and arid village that, in my memory, resembled Pedro Páramo’s Comala. When I was old enough to wander on my own, I frequented the Oromana Park in my city and discovered a wild nature very different from the dry landscape of that village. There was the Guadaíra river, which was heavily polluted at the time, but it had lush riverbanks and magnificent trees; there was a forest, something that for me had only existed in fairy tales, and in that forest were ancient watermills that were not mere ruins but blended into the surroundings with absolute dignity. Let’s mix these ingredients: a solitary teenager with a knack for drawing, endless summer days, a spectacular environment, and a new set of watercolors. Combine them well, and you get a young painter creating watercolor landscapes of his hometown. Borges once again.

I cannot overlook the influence of the artists I was beginning to discover, many of whom were from the renowned Alcalá School (Sánchez Perrier, Hohenleiter, García Rodríguez, Pinelo, etc., from the 19th and 20th centuries), and others, more contemporary, from the Alcalá group “Retama” (Barranco, Recacha, Romera...). All of them captured my attention and seemed like unreachable masters, especially a watercolorist from the 1920s named Luis Contreras, whose work was a treasure that my friend Manuel Silva had gifted me, a treasure that I would study and admire intensely.

The coordinates were already set. When you add time, curiosity, and dedication to the mix, the cocktail is complete. While in other painting techniques (oil, acrylic, drawing, etc.) materials and tools are important but not decisive, in watercolor they are essential. And since very few people used this technique except for sketches or minor works, it took me a long time to master it, following the old “trial and error” approach. Watercolor is indeed a somewhat arcane science, almost esoteric, as it holds secrets that are not easily shared.

I was finally able to see and experience the delicate responsiveness of good paper to water, rather to pools of water, its respect for pigment as it dries, the infinite possibilities for gradients, its resilience under sunlight, and its delicacy at the edges and limits of a wash. I marveled at the depth of quality pigments, their subtle and precise mixing, and, of course, their purity. And then there are the brushes, but that’s another story.

I was finally able to see and experience the delicate responsiveness of good paper to water, rather to pools of water, its respect for pigment as it dries, the infinite possibilities for gradients, its resilience under sunlight, and its delicacy at the edges and limits of a wash. I marveled at the depth of quality pigments, their subtle and precise mixing, and, of course, their purity. And then there are the brushes, but that’s another story.