MARIANO BARBASÁN LAGUERUELA (Zaragoza, 1864 -... Lot 63

MARIANO BARBASÁN LAGUERUELA (Zaragoza, 1864 - 1924). "Washerwomen at the river". Oil on canvas. Signed and located in Rome in the lower left corner. Slight faults in the frame and on the back of the painting. label of Ramoneda and Barrachina. Measurements: 80 x 116 cm; 99 x 134 cm (frame). Panoramic landscape of great beauty, presided by a river that widens forming a pond. Around the washing gesture of one of the women, waves are drawn in the water. The reflective surface of the pond absorbs all the shades of autumn in shimmering mottled shades. The river flows through a wooded terrain that undulates in soft valleys. The brushstroke unfolds in a variety of touches (swift, juicy, tight or long) depending on whether the treetops, the green of the meadow or the watery glazes are depicted... Barbasán reflects with his characteristic genius the different speeds that water acquires, from its foamy crests to its mirror-like transparencies. Mariano Barbasán began his training at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he entered in 1880. During his time as a student, he maintained a close relationship with his fellow students Joaquín Sorolla and Salvador Abril. In 1887 he moved to Madrid to see the collections of the Prado Museum, and that same year he took part in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. During this period he travelled regularly to Toledo, studying its landscapes and architecture. In 1889 he obtained a pension from the Diputación de Zaragoza to complete his studies in Rome. He finally decided to stay in Italy permanently. He opened a studio in Rome, but for long periods he worked in Subiaco, in the Roman countryside. At the age of fifty-seven he returned to Spain to take up a post at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Luis in Saragossa. Thanks to his contacts with English and German dealers, his work spread rapidly throughout Europe. He exhibited repeatedly in Berlin, Munich, Vienna and Montevideo. An anthological exhibition was held in his native city in 1923 at the Centro Mercantil, and another posthumous one was held at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Madrid in 1925. Although he initially painted some works of a historical nature, Barbasán chiefly cultivated landscape painting and scenes of rural life, as in the present work. In this canvas we can appreciate his personal abbreviated brushstroke and his masterly sensitivity in capturing the light and atmosphere of his surroundings. His style, colourful and luminous, is above all realistic, with a certain influence of Impressionism (mainly Italian Pre-Impressionism) and the work of Fortuny. Works by Mariano Barbasán can be found in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Provincial Museum of Zaragoza, the Museum of Modern Art in Rome, and the Fine Arts Museums of St. Petersburg, Munich, Warsaw, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, among others.