Monument to Simón Bolívar

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Art · Subcategory: Sculpture · Year: 1982 · Authors: Juan Jaén

It is placed on a circular flowerbed, decorated with native flora, from which emerges a masonry plinth just over a metre high, which in turn gives way to a second bronze base of the same shape but somewhat stouter; above this rises a rectangular prism presenting three images of Bolívar. In one appears the figure of the Liberator, in another with his wife, and in the last, alongside Simón Rodríguez, a character who was his teacher and who, apparently, sparked differing opinions among some Venezuelan authorities, who did not consider his presence on the monument appropriate, although it was finally included given the influence he exerted on Simón Bolívar's political formation.

It is notable that the honouree is represented without mythification and without any military exaltation, as in all three faces he appears dressed as a civilian. The three high reliefs are executed traditionally, without adding more innovation than the triangular conception as a commemorative monument. The figures are excessively elongated and inert, seeming like cutouts adhered to the bronze surface; perhaps the most unfortunate is the individual Bolívar, covered by a wide cloak full of vertical folds, which gives the body too much volume, disproportionate to his head.

28.126314, -15.428427