每年，数百名学生、教职员工和游客都会经过路易斯·金塔尼拉（Luis Quintanilla）充满活力的壁画。金塔尼拉是西班牙侨民，他在离开西班牙的一段时间里为堪萨斯城大学（University of Kansas City）创作了这些壁画，这所大学后来成为密苏里-堪萨斯城大学（威尼斯人娱乐城）。
After more than five years of searching for funding, the world’s premiere fresco restoration artists have given these murals new life, thanks to the KC Monuments Coalition and the Mellon Foundation。
威尼斯人娱乐城 庆祝复辟由从西班牙飞来的首演壁画修复艺术家表演， 和来自 著名的西班牙裔社会历史学家帕特里克·莱纳汉博士谈到唐 堂吉诃德的故事出现在金塔尼拉和其他现代主义西班牙艺术家的作品中。
“I’m so happy to see these murals are get停 一个新的李fe, both physically and the renewed public interest,” Lenaghan said。 “They’re works of art that are just a part of a building until you stop to look at them。”
讲座结束后，参观者 莱纳汉和克里斯汀·基里格（Christine Kierig）博士进行了一次较为随意的交谈。 候选人 专门研究在复辟期间流亡的西班牙现代主义者。
The murals, and Kierig’s research about them, are one of more than a dozen projects preserving history throughout Kansas City as part of the KC纪念碑联盟提供的资金。
“We’re so happy this process started, because it's been a few years since it was even proposed that these murals needed restoration,” said Viviana Grieco, Ph。D。, a professor of history at 威尼斯人娱乐城 and one of the principal investigators on the restoration。 “It’s nice to finally have boots on the ground, as it were。”
其他主要研究人员包括威尼斯人娱乐城的世界语言和文化教授Alberto Villamandos博士和威尼斯人娱乐城校园历史学家Christopher Wolff。
When the 威尼斯人娱乐城 team came to select restoration artists, they knew Iñaki Gárate Llombart and Beatriz del Ordi, both Spanish fresco restoration specialists, were the artists for the job。 这对来自西班牙的艺术家之所以被选中，部分原因是他们在公开展出的金塔尼拉壁画上的工作经验。
“You have to be careful, respectful, always with feeling,” Llombart said。 “It doesn't matter if it's made 40 years ago or thousands。 You treat it as unique piece of art。”
It’s an intense process to restore a fresco mural。 它开始于广泛的摄影，照明，甚至轻拍壁画表面，以显示所有需要修饰的点。 There are in-depth notes for the photos that go back to Spain for the last member of the team, Guadalupe Carramiñana, to do the required documentation。 然后，用水和一种特殊的日本纸清洗壁画，以去除多年暴露在自然环境中的污垢和污垢。 最后，可以开始填充和绘画，但只能在损坏的地方。 这些照片不仅有助于记录，还有助于对原作进行细致的色彩匹配。
“It's tricky because you have to do that according to criteria,” Llombart said。 “The reintegration, just light straight lines, very close together。 从远处看，你看不出我们的作品和原作有什么不同。 If you look closer: ‘There are the lines, so it has to be a restoration。’”
That is, they want to remain honest about what is original and what has been touched up, to respect Luis Quintanilla’s work。
这些壁画在哈格大厅的二楼向公众开放。 来自堪萨斯城纪念碑联盟的其余资金将用于简化目前的美国残疾人协会访问壁画和历史事实，采访和故事的触摸屏，这些以前是好奇的路人无法获得的。
本地连接
Julián Zugazagoitia, director of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, has a compelling connection to the murals — one he only discovered when he saw them firsthand。
祖加加戈吉亚在堪萨斯城住了五年，然后他爬上大理石台阶来到哈格大厅的二楼，调查他的家族和堪萨斯城之间的遗产。 Quintanilla and Zugazagoitia’s grandfather, also named Julián Zugazagoitia, were friends and soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, figh停 the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco。
1934年，金塔尼拉和祖加萨戈伊亚一起在西班牙监狱服刑，在那里，这位艺术家为他的朋友和同胞画了素描。
“I’d seen an exhibit in New York that included the drawing of my grandfather,” Zugazagoitia said。 “Not long after, Quintanilla’s grandson sent me an email to tell me about the murals。 It was in the back of my mind, but I had not made it over to see。”
总统的请求
Quintanilla came to UKC in 1940 to serve as its first artist-in-residence at the invitation of UKC President Clarence Decker。 At 34 years old, Decker was the youngest-serving president of the country’s youngest university。 He suggested Quintanilla paint a mural in Haag Hall using the theme, “Don Quixote in the Modern World。”
It was a bold move for the college president, considering Quintanilla’s political past。
“The national mood in 1938 was certainly one of unease,” says John Herron, 现任威尼斯人娱乐城前院长和历史教授。 “The effects of the Great Depression were still apparent, and the growing militarism and unrest in Europe did little to calm fears。 Americans, for the most part, wanted nothing to do with a second world conflict and were eager to stay out of European politics。”
德克尔是艺术和文化的直言不讳的支持者，他利用自己在大学的角色，与许多有政治背景的艺术家建立了关系。
“Decker offered visi停 appointments to a number of artists, poets and writers, and worked actively to make Kansas City a kind of avant-garde center in the American Midwest,” Herron said。 “Decker understood the hostility many artists and scholars, especially Jews, faced abroad。 He remained a proponent of bringing these artists to Kansas City whenever possible。”
Quintanilla的愿景
At the time of Decker’s invitation, Quintanilla was living in New York as part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Committee for Displaced Scholars and Artists program that brought oppressed and imprisoned artists from Europe to the United States。 His art had recently been shown at the 1938 World’s Fair in New York。
Quintanilla envisioned four panels using Don Quixote’s story as an allegory of the horrors and oppression of fascism in Europe。 这位艺术家以大学教职员工为模特。 他自己的家人出现在一个面板上。
Zugazagoitia, who was aware that Quintanilla used family and friends as models in his work, expected to find his grandfather’s face looking back at him from the walls。 事实并非如此，但他的发现更为强大。
“When I saw he had dedicated the mural to my grandfather I was stunned。 To see his name — my name — in the corner … It took a while for me to process, but it fulfilled a notion of destiny for me。 Finding his name confirmed that Kansas City is where I should be。”
现代启示
除了他的个人关系，祖加加戈伊亚还被提醒，作为一名移民是多么重要。 他认为这些壁画是在提醒人们，在一个陌生的地方要怎么走。
“It underscored for me how important it is to reinvent yourself in a new country,” he said。 “It seems the perfect time to be talking about this。”
Zugazagoitia强调了保护这些壁画的重要性。 Besides recognizing the work for its artistic and historical merit — it is one of only two Quintanilla murals that were not destroyed during the Spanish Civil War — he believes living with art changes those who are exposed to it。
“Our experience is better because it exists。 We are privileged to live in an environment that nourishes us, even if we don’t notice,” he said。 “It makes these stories meaningful and present in our lives。”
本文最初发表于2018年威尼斯人娱乐城校友杂志《透视》。
The work of the Luis Quintanilla’s Murals Restoration Project is done in partnership with the 堪萨斯城古迹联盟。 KCMC是一个合作倡议，支持整个城市的保护和纪念组织，由安德鲁·w·梅隆基金会慷慨资助。