Cristino de Vera: Silence, Light, and The Language of Painting
Cristino de Vera stands like an ordinary saint in the quiet spaces of Madrid. He sits beside the sound of Gregorian chant, his eyes weary with time, watching the world drift by while his life quietly preserves its colors. In the heart of the city he searches for the hues that make the air visible on a horizon that often looks dull, pausing halfway through his outward vision to look inward. He speaks through words and silence, seeking the precise voice that reveals where the light resides in the very mood of his paintings.
There are no concrete issues about him, only a practice of ethics rooted in silence. He speaks as if he translates a deeper language. He once shared that human language is small before a divine calligraphy that renders existence into the vast desert of solitude.
Clear, painful paintings emerge from earth and air, heirs to Zurbarán and Luis Fernández, guided above all by the silence his mentors taught him. Juan Manuel Bonet, an art critic, has described him as a “picture hermit.” Bonet also organized the aesthetic framework for an exhibition that marks the 92-year-old Tenerife-born painter’s return to Rome, where he studied at an Italian art school in 1962 on a foundation scholarship. The Rome show, supported by cultural and philanthropic organizations, reflects de Vera’s lifelong connection to La Laguna, his home base, and his ongoing commitment to artistic exploration across the island. It is a landmark moment, with the painter stepping again onto the international stage after years of vivid work and quiet study.
Cristino de Vera’s image in Madrid captures a man whose everyday life remains devoted to craft, while his conversations reveal a poet who composes with color, light, and sound. He speaks with the cadence of reading poetry or composing music, and those conversations illuminate the landscape that has inspired his work for decades. He has drawn inspiration from the Castilian plain and from the island’s features—the Teide’s silhouette, the long horizons, the bare peaks—elements that travel with him as steady companions. This fusion of place and sensibility forms the foundation of his artistic vision.
In conversation, de Vera speaks about a life-long journey toward poetry and painting, a journey that has always felt like a shared rhythm with nature. The search is for a voice that can accompany the landscapes he paints, a voice that feels like music and unfurls like poetry. The landscapes of Unamuno and Don Quixote, he notes, echo in the way the Iberian plain and Canarian scenery shape his painting. The quiet that accompanies air and light becomes a constant companion, a language that helps him translate vision into canvas.
Question: He studied in Rome on a scholarship in 1962. His path now travels to Rome again in his work.
A reflective memory follows: he traveled to Rome and many other places, writing to the March Foundation about what he learned and the beauty he witnessed. He recalled Italy stacking beauty high, and he paid close attention to the silence that the human spirit maintains within religious spaces and the energy of time. Faith remained present, sometimes wavering, but a lasting relationship with the divine endured.
Sometimes the belief sparked anew when Bach’s music filled his studio. The choral textures, the voices—these sounds grew rarer and more spiritual, and silence walked at the heart of the music as the measure of its greatness. Silence, he says, is the purest form of inner light; it feels like dawn after a long night’s journey. He recalls a radiant purple-blue light seen outside the museum, an atmosphere that resembled Fra Angelico and suggested a beauty raised to meditation and prayer. For him, all arts are linked by a spiritual thread, an idea that unites Christianity and other faiths alike.
One remark captures his sense of religion’s reach: religion should not be a first encounter for children but a doorway that invites a deeper light—the morning light, a divine message wrapped in white brilliance. His life unfolds as a long inner journey, a pursuit of mysteries that can restore faith. He sees Bach’s music as a conduit, a way to turn intricate beauty into a miracle of quiet, a language that transcends words and elevates the spirit.
When asked what his painting will urge viewers to notice in Rome, he suggests seeking what he himself seeks in painting: the scent of silence, simplicity, and calm. He describes a monkish atmosphere in which silence acts as a dialogue with the divine, a force that can sharpen the mind the way a diamond must be cared for like a cherished garden. He notes that critics have pointed to influences from Zurbarán, del Greco, Piero della Francesca, and others, yet the essence remains a shared philosophy—a musical current that leads the viewer toward a depth where silence speaks without language.
The mystery of light, he says, resides in night. The view matters less than the silence it conveys; it is this silence that drives his painting. He speaks of his roots across Castile and the Canary Islands, two landscapes that feel worlds apart yet share a quiet vocabulary. His father hailed from Granadilla, and there is still something archly mysterious about the Guanches. A visit to Cueva Pintada in Gran Canaria left a lasting impression. Castilla, with its plains, evokes Unamuno and Don Quixote, yet all landscapes in his eyes convey serenity and stillness. The air calms the day, distant mountains offer a secret echo, and daylight slowly regulates itself. The mystery of light equals night, and the landscape’s calling remains the same: the silence it conveys that pushes one to paint.
Question: Years ago you spoke of wanting your paintings to be the romance of peace in the universe. Was that more than a statement?
A memory of hardship accompanies this reflection: a civil war and years when the Canary Islands faced disease and hardship, when friends fell to illness and scarcity. Yet through it all, the sense of renewal persisted in quiet, contemplative expression. The painter views those experiences as part of the larger arc of life, a reminder that beauty and resilience can emerge from struggle.
What do the Canary Islands signify to him now, perhaps a poem? He answers with a vivid image: a last poem in which Red Mountain glows, its beaches and silence, the sea’s curves meeting the shore with the force of waves. He looks at the boats and at the landscape with a sense of awe, acknowledging how the islands continue to shape his perspective.
Question: Is the painting exhibition traveling to Rome?
A final note centers on a significant body of work. The most important elements include Villain landscape, Jesus and Castile, Teide, clouds and white glasses, and skulls. The curator Bonet chose to present these works in a way that honors the painter’s vision with quiet wisdom.
Question: Your art is born from awe. How does suffering influence it?
A: Suffering belongs to art and the human condition. Philosophizing about life means acknowledging mortality. The world, like the era one lives in, is temporary. A painter cultivates a garden of the mind, learns to meditate, and seeks contentment in silence. The serenity pursued clears away distractions learned along the way, leaving only a focused light that guides brush and hand.