Juan Pablo Salinas

JUAN PABLO SALINAS TERUEL (Madrid, 1871 - Rome, 1946).
"Gallant scenes".
Oil paintings on panels (x2).
They present faults and restorations.
They have period frames.
Signed and located, Rome.
Measurements: 19,5 x 29,5 cm (x2); 40 x 50 cm (frames, x2).

Pair of oil paintings on boards that have the same format and theme. Both paintings are starring a couple, although the attention lavished on each scene is different. While in one of them the young people share confidences, in the other one it is observed how the woman, lying down, turns her back to the man who holds a newspaper with one of his hands. The costumes and ornamentation of each of the works are set in the 18th century, worked with great attention to detail, a strong descriptive spirit and a special care for the play of light and the qualities of the fabrics, following the masters of that century. This type of scenes, with a gallant and hedonistic theme, cheerful and colorful, worked with a precious and descriptive workmanship, were frequent during the second half of the 19th century, within the context of historicism. They belong to the genre called "de casacones" in Spain, and "tableautin" in France, characterized by works inspired by an idealized past, frequently from the 17th and 18th centuries, normally of small or medium format and destined to an eminently bourgeois clientele. One of the first examples of this genre was "Il Contino", by Mariano Fortuny, dated 1861 and preserved in the National Museum of Art of Catalonia.
Juan Pablo Salinas began his artistic training at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in Madrid, although his time in the classroom was probably short-lived. He began to make himself known in 1885, the year in which he participated in the exhibition organized by the Association of Writers and Artists and in the Aragonese Exhibition, being awarded in both with a third class medal. Around 1886 he moved to Rome to further his studies thanks to a scholarship granted by the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza. There he attended the International Circle of Fine Arts, as well as the evening classes of the Chigi Academy. He also joined the Spanish artistic colony residing in the city, and worked with his brother, the painter Agustín Salinas, who had been living in Rome since 1883. Both brothers submitted works to the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1887; Juan Pablo sent "Mark Antony and Cleopatra", a classical theme. Like his brother, his true master, Salinas also recreated medieval themes of notable Tuscan influence, with works such as "Romeo and Juliet" or "Scene from the Decameron". His style evolved towards costumbrismo, with special attention to popular Spanish and Italian scenes, such as "Una boda en Aragón" (A Wedding in Aragón), "Regreso de los vendimiadores" (Return of the Grape Harvesters) and other works. His career remained closely linked to that of his brother until he met, on a trip to Paris, the work of Ernest Meissonier, whose influence led him to focus on the genre of casacones, with which he achieved great sales success in France, Italy, Central Europe, Russia and America. During these years he exhibited in the Salons Roger and began his famous compositions of eighteenth-century atmosphere, in which characters dressed in the fashion of the time appear in the context of luxurious interiors, meticulously detailed through a precious technique, which is recreated in the colorful description of clothes and lace but, above all, in the masterful treatment of female flesh tones, deliberately sensual. Also at this stage Salinas made several series for the decoration of large salons. In addition to these themes, he also painted orientalist scenes and church interiors. In the last stage of his career there is a decrease in detail, a looser and less descriptive character. Juan Pablo Salinas is currently represented in the Prado Museum (his work is on deposit at the Asturias Fine Arts Museum in Oviedo), the Bellver Collection in Seville and other public and private collections.