Spanish school; early 19th century.

Spanish school; early 19th century.
"Marina".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 70 x 88 cm; 87 x 107 cm (frame).
The painter captures in this work a subjective nature, of romantic influence. He chooses a calm day, looking for a golden atmosphere that gives nature a special lyricism. There is a development of spatial depth. In the foreground the brushstroke is dense and precise, and builds the forms based on the chromatism, rich and varied, and the changes of light and shadow, subtle and very studied.
The marine only began to become a genre at the beginning of the Renaissance, with the spread of landscape as an autonomous genre. Pure seascapes, however, would not become popular until the seventeenth century, especially in Dutch painting, reflecting the very powerful foreign trade and the large Dutch naval fleet. These same motifs would encourage the cultivation of seascapes in British painting. Later, Romanticism recovered the theme of the sea and the coast, especially in its most tempestuous aspects. Germans and Englishmen excelled in the representation of rough seas or lonely and mystical cliffs. In the 19th century the art market expanded considerably and genre painting, especially landscape painting, enjoyed great success in bourgeois circles. The generalization of plein air painting, on the other hand, favored that promenades, beaches and ports were filled with easel painters immortalizing maritime scenes. The pure seascapes were a reflection of the very powerful foreign trade and the great naval fleet of Holland. In marine painting, artists very often opted for turbulent views, dominated by gray, stormy skies and ships facing the elements.