Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer

JOAQUÍN DOMÍNGUEZ BÉCQUER (Seville, 1817 - 1879).
"Andalusian couple".
Oil paintings on panels (x2).
They have frames of the nineteenth century.
Signed in the lower left area.
Measurements: 63 x 47,5 cm (x2); 72 x 58,5 cm (frames, x2).
Pair of oil paintings with the same theme and composition, indicating that they were originally conceived together. One of them presents a lady dressed in the fashion of the time, while the other presents a man following the regional fashion. The costumbrista theme is rooted in the romantic vision that, among other aspects, pays special attention to those traditional, popular or typical customs that reflect what is understood as the genuine way of being and living of the people of the village, their traditions and values, and does so, moreover, from a mythical and idealized perspective in which the popular classes, especially those of the rural environment, are always opposed to the model that personifies the growing city, which has grown in the heat of industrialization. This model of costumbrismo assumed in Romanticism survives for a long time in the European pictorial culture of the 19th century, since later Realism, although it sometimes introduces a more objective and dispassionate vision and focuses its attention on the hardness of work, continues to disseminate images of peasants and their tasks, rural customs, traditional trades, in short, much of what was feared to disappear in a few decades.
Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer learned the first rudiments of the art of painting from his cousin José, the initiator of this outstanding dynasty of painters, and in turn was the teacher of his nephew Valeriano Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo's brother. The young painter then entered the Santa Isabel School of Fine Arts in Seville, an institution of which, over the years, he would become a professor and director, as well as an academician since 1847. He was also a member of the Real Academia Sevillana de las Buenas Letras, one of the founders of the Liceo Artístico of his native city, and was commissioned by Isabel II to direct the pictorial works carried out on the occasion of the restoration of the Reales Alcázares of Seville. He was honorary chamber painter of the queen from 1850, as well as drawing teacher of his nephews. Maximum exponent of the Sevillian costumbrista painting, considered creator of the Sevillian romantic school, he also dedicated himself to portrait and history painting. His style, of great academic correctness derived from a deep knowledge of ancient Spanish painting, was characterized by the scenographic sense of his outdoor paintings, with a rich play of hallmarks that give depth to the works. The relevance of Domínguez Bécquer in the Seville of the mid-nineteenth century allowed him access to the select circle of friends of the Dukes of Montpensier, established in the city of Seville in 1848 and main patrons and promoters of the renewal of the local art scene. Especially, during these years genre painting experienced a great development, which spread the romantic myth of Spain with Andalusia as the absolute center of the exotic charm that foreign travelers were looking for in the Peninsula. Domínquez Bécquer participated in this Spanish costumbrismo on numerous occasions. Domínguez Bécquer is represented in the Prado Museum, the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastián, the Romantic Museum in Madrid, the Bonnat Museum in Bayonne, the Fine Arts Museums in Seville and Huelva, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, among others.