Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

EUGENIO LUCAS VELÁZQUEZ (Madrid, 1817 - 1870).
"Maja shaving a young man".
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower left frame.
Measurements: 26 x 36.5 cm; 54 x 64 cm (frame).
In this canvas Lucas Velazquez represents a popular theme, starring men and women of low social extraction, faithfully following the style and the critical and dark vision of his indirect master, Francisco de Goya. Thus, although he portrays a cheerful, even festive atmosphere, the viewer is faced with an oppressive, dark and suffocating environment, rich in chiaroscuro in the Baroque style, illuminated by a gloomy light, with violent hallmarks of light and shadow, which gives the scene a certain dramatic theatricality. This expressive violence is also evident in the brushstroke itself, loose and very impastoed, sinuous and changing, which becomes the protagonist of the composition as much as the light, the dusty atmosphere or even the caricatured, almost demonic faces of the characters that populate the background.
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).