Holland Festival - Murillo

Tableau vivant about (the gesture of) begging

Claudia Castellucci creates a tableau vivant about (the gesture of) begging. She was inspired by the paintings of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. A master of visual poetry from seventeenth-century Spain.

Murillo, known for his portraits of young beggars – he himself was once a beggar – laid the foundation for a genre that was later widely imitated. Cheap reproductions became popular, opening up an art form that had previously served the elite.

Combining elements of dance, theatre and visual art, Castellucci's work plays with the tension between stillness and movement, between giving and receiving. In Murillo, Castellucci explores the power and tension of the begging gesture.