Andalusian school, XIX century.

Andalusian School, XIX century.
"Lady with guitar".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 83 x 66 cm; 99 x 81 cm (frame).
The author presents a portrait of a lady with guitar, the woman is sitting on a chair, slightly turned, breaking the strict frontality of the scene. The work stands out for its volume and the rotundity of the forms with which the protagonist has been portrayed. In the 19th century, the panorama of European portraiture was varied and broad, with numerous influences and largely determined by the taste of both the clientele and the painter himself. However, in this century a new concept of portraiture was born, which would evolve throughout the century and unify all the national schools: the desire to capture the personality of the human being and his character, beyond his external reality and his social rank, in his effigy. During the previous century, portraiture had become consolidated among the upper classes, and was no longer reserved only for the court. For this reason, the formulas of the genre, as the 18th century progressed and even more so in the 19th century, became more relaxed and moved away from the ostentatious and symbolic official representations typical of the Baroque apparatus. On the other hand, the 19th century will react against the rigid etiquette of the previous century with a more human and individual conception of life, and this will be reflected in all areas, from the furniture that becomes smaller and more comfortable, replacing the large gilded and carved furniture, to the portrait itself, which will come to dispense, as we see here, of all scenographic elements to capture the individual instead of the character.