Anselmo Guinea

ANSELMO GUINEA Y UGALDE (Abando, Bilbao, 1854 - 1906).
"Landscape with peasant".
Oil on canvas.
Without signature.
The work appears with the number A205 and the title Orchard (c. 1892-1895) in the catalog raisonné of the painter, made by Mikel Lertxundi Galiana. It also details its provenance: Collection of the artist, Bilbao, c. 1892-1895 to 1906; collection of Valentina Zuazaga, widow of the artist, Bilbao, 1906 to 1920; collection of Eloísa Guinea, daughter of the artist, Bilbao, c. 1920 to 1922; collection of the painter Antonio de Guezala, widower of Eloísa Guinea, Bilbao, 1922 to 1956.
We thank Mikel Lertxundi for his help in cataloguing the work.
Measurements: 53 x 75; 57,5 x 81 cm (frame).

Bucolic and atmospheric landscape that evokes a sense of stillness. The composition is centered on a winding path that is lost in the distance, flanked by trees and gentle hills. Pastel tones predominate, with soft greens ranging from emerald to blue-green, purplish grays, and touches of white and pale yellow in the lighter vegetation. Trees show their intricate branches against a lighter background, creating a calligraphic effect. The ground vegetation is rendered with loose, textured brushstrokes, suggesting cultivated fields or pastures. A dirt or sand road meanders from the foreground, inviting the viewer's eye to follow its path to the horizon. In the background, a series of gentle hills rise, their contours blurring with distance and ambient light, contributing to the sense of depth and breadth. The farmer blends harmoniously into the landscape, adding a human scale, suggesting rural activity.

Anselmo Guinea trained at the Special School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving in Madrid and in the studio-workshop of Federico de Madrazo. When he returned to the Basque Country in 1876, he obtained the chair of drawing at the School of Arts and Crafts, a position he held until his death. Later, in 1881, he made a trip to Rome to improve his skills and study ancient techniques. In 1890 he traveled in the company of Manuel Losada to Paris, where he attended classes at the Gerveix Academy, thus making contact with the impressionist currents that were then taking hold in the French capital. He got to know impressionism first hand, but also pointillism and modernism, and from then on his painting will take a turn, becoming more luminous and fluid. Guinea held exhibitions of his work in that city (1882, 1894) and in Madrid. He also took part in the International Exhibition of Barcelona in 1890 and in the one organized by the Municipal Museum of the same city in 1898, being awarded in the latter with the second medal. He took part in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, obtaining the third medal in the editions of 1884 and 1899. He was also awarded a gold medal at the Provincial Exhibition of Vizcaya held in Bilbao in 1882. He cultivated watercolor, easel and mural painting, and in this last discipline he decorated several public buildings, such as the Diputación de Vizcaya, and private residences such as the one in Sota (Ibaigane). A pioneer in Spain of the new pictorial styles that were being developed abroad, Guinea is one of the most outstanding patriarchs of modern Basque painting. He was a magnificent draughtsman, and also mastered the foreshortening, the diaphanous and transparent colors and the serene, almost melancholic expressions of the Biscayan people he portrayed. His contribution to the renovation of the Basque costumbrismo and landscape painting will be decisive; despite the fact that industrialization was beginning to produce alterations in the landscape, Guinea will remain attached to a ruralist vision, for which he will find types and motifs in the idyllic valley of Arratia. In the years of the turn of the century his friendship with various local collectors, and especially with the shipowner Ramon de la Sota, allowed him to expand his thematic register with marine scenes and also explore the artistic possibilities of stained glass in a modernist key. In 2012, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum dedicated to him the first monographic exhibition dedicated to his work. He is currently mainly represented in that museum, as well as in the Museum of Fine Arts of Alava, the Casa de Juntas de Guernika, the Palacio Foral de Bilbao and other public and private collections.