Andalusian school of the 19th century

Andalusian school of the 19th century.
"Family on the road".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 62,5 x 83 cm.
This work, framed within the Andalusian costumbrista school of the 19th century, offers us a picturesque scene with popular characters, minutely described with a short and precise brushstroke that, nevertheless, becomes more fluid and vaporous in the landscape.
Traditionally, Spanish painting and literature have been interested in popular customs and types. The arrival of Romanticism enlivened this trend, bringing to the Hispanic tradition the vision that foreigners had of our people, due to the snobbery of a Europeanising and liberal national bourgeoisie which, also due to foreign influence and under the Romantic fashion, turned its eyes to the people and monuments of the past. This, which was general throughout Spain, was particularly prevalent in Andalusia, as this land was the dream destination of foreigners, and where the influence of the vision they had of the Spaniard and his peculiar customs had to be felt most strongly. Thus, of the two fundamental costumbrista schools, the Andalusian school is focused on a friendly, folkloric picturesqueness, far removed from any attempt at social criticism; the Madrid school, on the other hand, is more pungent and harsh, sometimes going so far as to show not only the vulgar, but even recreating heart-rending visions of a clichéd world of the slums, in which the spirit of criticism is evident. The Cadiz precursors Juan Rodríguez y Jiménez (1765-1830) and Joaquín Manuel Fernández Cruzado (1781-1856) were followed by a splendid development of the Seville school, in which foreign influence seems to have played an important role, due to the influx of artists and travellers to the city and the interest of foreign clientele in topical Spanish genre scenes. This fact is corroborated by the foreign artistic clientele for the small and amiable costumbrista paintings of one of its initiators, José Domínguez Bécquer (1805-1841), creator and formulator, to a large extent, of this theme, being the teacher of numerous disciples, and father of the poet Gustavo Adolfo and the painter Valeriano, author of popular types and scenes ("La Cruz de Mayo" (The Cross of May, private collection). Antonio Cabral Bejarano (1788-1861) also played an important role in the creation and formulation of Sevillian costumbrismo, who insisted on isolated figures rather than scenes, with a certain theatricality, landscape backgrounds with a local flavour and a vaporous Murillesque atmosphere ("Un majo y una maja", Bosch collection, Barcelona).