Costumbrismo - Costumbrismo in The Visual Arts in Spain

Costumbrismo in The Visual Arts in Spain

As in literary costumbrismo, Madrid and Andalusia (particularly Seville) were Spain's two great centers of costumbrismo in the visual arts. Andalusian costumbrista paintings were mainly romantic and folkloric, largely devoid of social criticism. Much of their market was to foreigners for whom Andalusia epitomized their vision of a Spain distinct from the rest of Europe. The costumbrista artists of Madrid were more acerbic, sometimes even vulgar, in portraying the life of lower class Madrid. More of their market was domestic, including to the often snobbish (and often Europeanizing and liberal) elite of the capital. Among other things, the School of Madrid often used large masses of solid color and painted with a broad brush, while the School of Seville painted more delicately. The Madrid paintings have a certain urgency, while the Seville paintings are typically serene, even misty. The Madrid painters focus more on unique individuals, the Sevillianos on individuals as representatives of a type.

Romantic Andalusian costumbrismo (costumbrismo andaluz) follows in the footsteps of two painters of the School of Cádiz, Juan Rodríguez y Jiménez, "el Panadero" ("the Baker", 1765–1830) and Joaquín Manuel Fernández Cruzado (1781–1856), both associated with Romanticism. The trend was continued by the School of Seville, in a city much more on the path of a foreign clientele. The founding figure was José Domínguez Bécquer (1805–1841), father of the poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (see above) and painter Valeriano Bécquer (1833–1870), who moved to Madrid. Domínguez Bécquer's influence came as an art teacher, as well as an artist. His student and cousin Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer (1817–1879) was known for his acute observation of light and atmosphere. Another of José Domínguez Bécquer's students, the bold and forceful Manuel Rodríguez de Guzmán (1818–1867), may have been the genre's strongest painter.

Other important early figures were Antonio Cabral Bejarano (1788–1861), best known for paintings of individuals theatrically posed against rural backgrounds, and an atmosphere reminiscent of Murillo, and José Roldán (1808–1871), also very influenced by Murillo, known especially as a painter of children and urchins. One of Cabral Bejarano's sons, Manuel Cabral Bejarano (1827–1891) began as a costumbrista, but eventually became more of a realist. Another son, Francisco Cabral Bejarano (1824–1890), also painted in the genre.

Other painters of the School of Seville were Andrés Cortés (1810–1879), Rafael García Hispaleto (1833–1854), Francisco Ramos, and Joaquín Díez; history painter José María Rodríguez de Losada (1826–1896); and portraitist José María Romero (1815–1880).

Typical subject matter included majos (lower class dandies) and their female equivalents, horsemen, bandits and smugglers, street urchins and beggars, Gypsies, traditional architecture, fiestas, and religious processions such as Holy Week in Seville.

The School of Madrid was united less by a common visual style than by an attitude, and by the influence of Goya rather than Murillo. Notable in this school were Alenza and Lameyer, both contributors to Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. Alenza, in particular, showed a strong influence from the Flemish painters as well as from Goya. A fine portraitist who tended to take his subjects from among the common people, in some ways he epitomizes the difference between the School of Madrid and that of Seville. For him the "official" Romanticism was a topic to satirize, as in his series of paintings Suicidios románticos ("Romantic suicides").

Probably foremost in the School of Madrid was Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817–1870). An artistic successor to Goya (though a more erratic painter than the master), Lucas Velázquez's work ranged from bullfighting scenes to Orientalism to scenes of witchcraft. His son Eugenio Lucas Villamil (1858–1918) and his students Paulino de la Linde (1837-?) and José Martínez Victoria followed in his tracks; he was also a strong influence on Antonio Pérez Rubio (1822–1888) and Ángel Lizcano Monedero (1846–1929).

José Elbo (1804–1844) was at least strongly akin to the School of Madrid. Although born in Úbeda in the Andalusian province of Jaén, Elbo studied painting in Madrid under José Aparicio (1773–1838), and was influenced by Goya; he was also influenced by the Central European equivalents of costumbrismo. His painting is rife with social criticism, and often angrily populist.

Also in Madrid, but not really part of the School of Madrid, was Valeriano Bécquer (transplanted son of José Domínguez Bécquer). Although also influenced by Goya (and by Diego Velázquez), his work in Madrid did partake of some of the socially critical aspects of the other painters of that city, but not of the satiric aspects: his portraits of common people emphasize their dignity, seldom their foibles.

The dark vision of 20th-century Madrid painter José Gutiérrez Solana (1886–1945) was influenced by costumbrismo and also directly by the Black Paintings of Goya that had so influenced the costumbristas.