GONZÁLEZ VELÁZQUEZ, Isidro

Spanish architect and engraver, part of a family of artists, son of Antonio González Velázquez the Elder. He is one of the most outstanding architects of Spanish NeoclassicismGLOSSARYA style in European art and architecture from the mid 18th century until the end of the 19th century. Based as it was on the use of ancient Greek and Roman models and motifs, its development was greatly influenced by the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and by the theories of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). Intellectually and politically it was closely linked to the Enlightenment's rejection of the aristocratic frivolity of Rococo, the style of the Ancien Régime. Among Neoclassicism's leading figures were the French painter Jacques-Louis David (1744-1825), the German painter Anton Raffael Mengs (1728-1729), and the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822).. His teacher was Juan de Villanueva with whom he learned to admire the works of classicalGLOSSARYRelating to the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (classical Antiquity). The classical world played a profoundly important role in the Renaissance, with Italian scholars, writers, and artists seeing their own period as the rebirth (the "renaissance") of classical values after the Middle Ages. The classical world was considered the golden age for the arts, literature, philosophy, and politics. Concepts of the classical, however, changed greatly from one period to the next. Roman literature provided the starting point in the 14th century, scholars patiently finding, editing and translating a wide range of texts. In the 15th century Greek literature, philosophy and art - together with the close study of the remains of Roman buildings and sculptures-expanded the concept of the classical and ensured it remained a vital source of ideas and inspiration. antiquity and the Renaissance. Finishing his Spanish training in 1790, as an extraordinary pensioner of Carlos IV he traveled travels to France, Italy and Greece, studying and measuring monuments and objects of the classic antiquity. He returned to Spain in 1795.

In 1799 he is a scholar of the Academy San Fernando and is named "Lieutenant of the greatest architect of the royal palaces and country houses of the King". His important projects are the Casita del Labrador in Aranjuez and the Monument to Dos de Mayo of Madrid (monument to a rebellion by the people of Madrid against the occupation of the city by French troops on May 2, 1808), currently the monument to the fallen of Spain.

After the War of Independence, the works of the great architect hardly go beyond projects.