Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

EUGENIO LUCAS VELÁZQUEZ (Madrid, 1817 - 1870).
"Goyaesque scene".
Ink on cardboard.
Measurements: 8,7 x 7,5 cm.
Eugenio Lucas is considered the Spanish romantic painter who better knew how to understand Goya's art, becoming the most important and passionate follower of the Goyaesque universe after the death of the brilliant Aragonese, whose essence he managed to assimilate to the point of making difficult in certain occasions the correct attribution of some works. On this occasion he offers us a scene with a clearly Goyaesque heritage.
Mentioned since the 19th century as Eugenio Lucas Padilla, or Eugenio Lucas the Elder, he was the Spanish Romantic artist who best understood Goya's art. Trained in the neoclassicism of the Academy of San Fernando, he soon turned his training around and devoted himself to studying Velázquez and, above all, Goya, whose works he admired and copied in the Prado Museum. In Goya's painting, Lucas Velázquez found the starting point to develop an imaginative personal painting, of fantastic visions and unleashed passions, within the purest romantic style. He also took the subject matter from Goya, and painted scenes of the Inquisition, covens, pilgrimages and bullfights. He also painted, in 1850, the now disappeared ceiling of the Royal Theater of Madrid, and later he was named honorary chamber painter and knight of the order of Carlos III by Queen Isabel II. As a good romantic, he made several trips, among which his stays in Italy, Morocco and Paris stand out. His works are characterized by the use of a spirited brushstroke and a casual style, without draftsmanship concerns, with a dense and impastoed matter of great chromatic richness and with the presence of strong chiaroscuro. He achieved great success as a painter of manners and scenes of fantastic and sinister character, although it is true that he was also an excellent landscape painter and portraitist. His work is well represented in the Prado Museum, and also in other centers such as the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Goya Museum in Castres (France).