Ramón Parada Justel

RAMÓN PARADA JUSTEL (Esgos, Orense, 1871-1902).
"Still life in front of the port".
Oil on copper.
Signed in the upper right corner.
Measurements: 16 x 24 cm; 42 x 47 cm (frame).

The artist represents a still life made up of seafood, among which the presence of fish, octopus, lobsters or shells can be observed. Strategically arranged in the foreground, the still life is placed in front of a marine port, a resource used by Parada to give narrative to the scene. Thus, in front of the still life in the foreground is a deep scene, open on the left side in a vast area of water, while on the right side there are high hills crowned by a building that could well be a castle, judging by its avenues. In this way, Parada Justel reinterprets the still life genre, adapting it to the marine environment, seeking maximum harmony between the food represented. The copper bowl in the lower right part of the composition also stands out, an element that allows the artist to recreate the different materials, with special interest in the tonality and brightness of the metal. In this way, we are faced with a small format work of one of the most significant artists of the plastic ourensana, a tremendously relevant personality of the Galician artistic transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
Ramón Parada Justel was trained at the San Fernando School in Madrid, where the imprint of Carlos de Haes would define his evolution. He broadened his aesthetic references in Rome, where he traveled thanks to a scholarship from the Diputación de Orense. His short life was spent between his homeland and Madrid. He took part in several National Exhibitions and won third class medals on two occasions, 1899 and 1901. He is inscribed in eclecticism, adopting the most diverse techniques and themes, a style shared with Galician painters of his generation as Jenaro Carrero or Joaquín Vaamonde. Justel will be, together with these authors, one of the members of the mythical Xeracion Doente (Sorrowful Generation), a denomination promoted by Bello Piñeiro to define the group of painters who lived during the last three decades of the 19th century and who became a link between the pictorial tradition of the 19th century and the artistic renovation that would arrive with the new century. His interest in the landscape will be a constant, evolving from academicism to a free and spontaneous style, product of the direct capture of nature. His stains of color denote a light impasto and an instinctive brushstroke. He captures the light effects that build the different planes of depth. He used to paint the surroundings of Madrid. He also practiced the orientalist genre, the nude and the portrait. He was commissioned to decorate the altar of San Antonio de Padua in the Cathedral of Orense. Justel died of tuberculosis, the same disease that killed other important painters such as Jenaro Carrero Fernández, Ovidio Murguía de Castro and Joaquín Vaamonde Cornide. He is represented in the Archaeological Museum of Orense.