Andalusian School; late seventeenth century.
"Pastoral scene".
Oil on canvas. Re-drawn.
Presents repainting.
Size: 114 x 170 cm; 115 x 172 cm (frame).
Oil on canvas of horizontal format, in which an image of country or pastoral character is developed. In the foreground, the author places a group of characters accompanied by several animals. The characters represented in the scene are a group of men and women who by their gestures and disposition are working. They are enjoying a nap. Due to the important presence of the landscape and the small dimensions of the characters, the author's special interest in capturing the landscape is evident. It is worth mentioning that this was a time in which the feeling began to beat that human and nature should be complementary, one reflected in the other. That is to say, the landscape should arouse emotion and transmit ideas. Thus, landscape painters like the author of this painting tried to express their feelings through the landscape, instead of imitating it. This idea was established through two main aspects: the dramatic, of turbulent and fantastic views, and the naturalistic, which emphasized images of a peaceful and serene nature, as in this case. It is this second conception that we see embodied in this work; the painter tries to communicate a religious reverence for the landscape, nature in its fullness, free from the industrial elements of modern life. In fact, the painter's use of light here conveys a dreamy atmosphere that invites the viewer to meditate and contemplate himself in the landscape. The landscape is nevertheless made up of manifestations of very different types and not comparable to each other; it does not affect all national schools equally, remaining more faithful to the tradition in schools such as the Italian, French or Dutch. Thus, in this canvas we do not find the grandiose scenery of the British and Germans, the rugged mountains. On the contrary, it is a landscape centered in the foreground.
This painting has similarities with the work of the artists Ignacio de Iriarte (Azcoitia, 1621 - Seville, 1670), and Matías de Arteaga y Alfaro (Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real, 1633 - Seville, 1703), who was attached to the Sevillian school, knew how to collect and interpret with his own personality the double influence of Murillo and Valdés Leal. Son of the engraver Bartolomé Arteaga, while still a child his family moved to Seville, where he would be trained in his father's workshop and in contact with Murillo, whose influence reveals his early work together with that of Valdés Leal, who settled in Seville the same year that Arteaga passed the master painter's exam, in 1656. In 1660 he was among the founding members of the famous drawing academy promoted by Murillo, among others, of which he served as secretary between that date and 1673.