Antonio Reyna

ANTONIO REYNA MANESCAU (Coín, Málaga, 1859 - Rome, 1937).
"Venice".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
With label of the Anquins gallery on the back.
Size: 34,5 x 75 cm; 53 x 93 cm (frame).
The Venetian views of Antonio Reyna took the genre of the Vedutti to the highest degree of artisticity. This urban landscape is an outstanding example of his ability to conjure up the "genius loci" of the place, the local flavour. With a vivid, colourful language, with a bold, impressionistic brushstroke, Reyna unfolds a magnificent panoramic view of the canal and the houses that surround it.
Now considered one of the most important Andalusian landscape painters of the 19th century, Antonio Reyna discovered his vocation for painting very early on, as well as his innate talent for drawing and his special aptitudes, which led his parents to enrol him at the Malaga School of Fine Arts. There he was taught, first by Joaquín Martínez de la Vega and later by Bernardo Ferrándiz. From a very young age he exhibited his works regularly, standing out in the local artistic scene for his colourful, attractive compositions and the ease of his brushstroke. His progress was spectacular, and in 1882 he obtained a grant from the Malaga Provincial Council to further his studies in Italy. Reyna had fallen in love with Rome, and he would stay there to live forever. In 1885 he travelled to Venice, and from then on he devoted most of his output to reproducing Venetian corners, depicted with a precious, narrative technique. In fact, he came to be known as "the painter of Venice". In 1910, on the occasion of his mother's death, Reyna spent some time in his native city. There he was inspired to produce another of his most celebrated successes, the canvas "Rancho Andaluz", which he showed at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome the following year. In his painting, which was certainly a novelty for the time, the painter displays at all times his skill at drawing, as well as an innate ability for composition, marked by the boldness of his brushstrokes and a great wealth of colour. On 5 December 2009, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Antonio Reyna's birth, an extensive anthological exhibition of his work was inaugurated at the García Agüera Foundation in Malaga. Antonio Reyna currently has a museum named after him in Coín, and is also represented in the Fine Arts Museums of Malaga and Boston, the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga and the Vatican Museums' art gallery, although most of his work is in the hands of private individuals, and paintings by him have been recorded in France, England, Switzerland and Holland.