94 - Spanish school, XX century.

Spanish school, XX century. "Goyaesque scene". Oil on canvas. Apocryphal signature in the lower left corner. Measurements: 20 x 40 cm; 40 x 61 cm (frame). In the frame of the rise of the regionalisms in the Spain of the second half of the XIX century and the first third of the XX century, an art of romantic inheritance, costumbrista and of realistic and meticulous invoice was developed, which was centered in the representation of subjects, topics and personages that reflect a new sense of the folkloric thing. In this context, the painters sought to reflect the types and customs of their own land, which made it different and unique, thus vindicating their own roots and, above all, the traditions and ways of dressing and behaving that were threatened by the notable growth of urban areas and the imposition of new fashions brought from outside. Art, fundamentally in its pictorial aspect, thus becomes in a certain way a vehicle of expression capable of making regional peculiarities known to the rest of the nation. This work is fully framed within this Spanish regionalist current still firmly anchored to romanticism because of its early date, since the later examples of this genre, already belonging to the twentieth century, denote the influence of impressionism and even the avant-garde, and move away from its romantic roots. On the other hand, the vindication of the Spanish is not limited to the thematic, but also affects the technical aspect: we see a pasty and undone invoice, rich in matter and also in detail, which reflects the brightness of the canvases in the same way that Diego Velázquez did, a great reference along with Francisco de Goya for a nineteenth-century Spanish school that rediscovers the modernity of his old masters.