Mexican school, ca.1820

Mexican School, ca.1820
"Portrait of a gentleman".
Oil on canvas.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 59 x 49 cm; 68 x 58 x 3 cm (frame).

This portrait of a gentleman is inscribed in the Mexican school of the first third of the XIX century, in a moment of transition between the late viceregal tradition and the new formal ideals associated with the Independence.

The figure is represented with sobriety and restraint, following a model of bourgeois and civilian portraiture that gradually replaced the colonial aristocratic iconography. The character wears neoclassical clothing, with a dark jacket, light vest and high white collar, elements that underline his social status and his adherence to the enlightened values of respectability, order and rationality.

The treatment of the face is careful and direct, with soft lighting that highlights the features without drama, and a frontal gaze that establishes a psychological link with the viewer.

The work thus reflects the survival of academic models inherited from the eighteenth century, combined with a new civic and modern sensibility, characteristic of Mexican painting in the years immediately following the breakup of the colonial order.