Pablo Uranga

PABLO URANGA DÍAZ DE ARCAYA (Vitoria, 1861 - San Sebastián, 1934).
"Triptych of the Wedding of Peace". Vitoria, 1908.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated and located, with inscriptions.
Formed by 3 paintings: "The Truce", "The Wedding of Peace" and "The Battle of Mondragon".
Commissioned by the Marquis of Ocaso for the Palace of San Salvador del Valle.
In the upper part: coats of arms of the respective families.
Provenance: descendants of the Marquis of Olaso.
Measurements: 250 x 176 cm (each canvas).

This imposing triptych, painted by the Basque painter Pablo Uranga in 1908, is one of the most ambitious narrative works of his career, and an exceptional example of historical painting of the Basque Country in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. Commissioned by the Marquis of Olaso for his residence in San Salvador del Valle, the set illustrates three fundamental episodes (mythologized but of great symbolic value) of the conflict between the medieval sides of the Oñacinos and Gamboínos, a feudal rivalry that deeply marked the history of the Basque territory during the 14th and 15th centuries.

In this first scene, "The Truce", of serene and ceremonial character, Uranga represents a moment of negotiation or armistice between the leaders of the warring sides. In the center, two dominant figures (the Gamboian chief and the Lord of Olaso) face each other solemnly, surrounded by a circle of men armed with spears and helmets. In the background, emerging from the mist, the silhouette of the castle of Butron is silhouetted, with its battlements bathed in the warm light of the sunset. The scene could be inspired by the episode in which Martín Ruiz de Olaso asks for the hand of Juana Ibáñez, daughter of Gómez González de Butrón, in what would be the preamble to a political and sentimental union destined to quell the conflict. Uranga achieves here a balance between medieval solemnity and landscape lyricism.

The central scene of the triptych, "The Wedding of Peace", represents the climax of the agreement between clans: the wedding ceremony between Martín Ruiz de Olaso and Doña Juana Ibáñez, in the church of San Bartolomé de Olaso, in Elgóibar. In front of the portico, with its detailed sculptural archivolts, a large retinue is spread out, dressed in full regalia. Uranga pays special attention to the gestures, the splendor of the costumes and the festive atmosphere. The Romanesque architecture of the church serves as a solemn frame for this scene of harmony achieved through lineage.

The third canvas, "The Battle of Mondragón", abruptly breaks the pacifying tone of the previous ones. It is a scene of open violence, charged with drama and kinetic tension, representing the combat fought in Mondragón, next to the Masla bridge, where Gómez González dies, victim not of his enemy, but of betrayal within his own side. The composition is agitated, with loose brushstrokes and narrative tension: foreshortened bodies, confusion of shields... and a bird of prey flying over the battlefield as a symbol of imminent death.

As a whole, the triptych recounts an essential episode of the Basque nobiliary imaginary, while offering a meditation on civil war, betrayal and the fragile nature of peace. The presence of noble coats of arms painted in gold on the upper part reinforces the genealogical and heraldic charge of the work, conceived as a visual manifesto of the family memory of the Marquis of Olaso. Uranga combines here his academic training with an emotional and narrative approach deeply rooted in the Basque tradition, contributing a style somewhere between romantic realism and symbolic historicism.

Pablo Uranga was a Spanish painter whose artistic career began at the School of Fine Arts in Alava, where he studied until 1880. In this year he moved to Madrid, and continued his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Thanks to the influence of the sculptor Paco Durrio, he later traveled to Paris, where he met artists such as Ignacio Zuloaga and Santiago Rusiño and held his first exhibition in 1897. When he returned to Spain, he moved to the Basque Country, and made frequent trips to Segovia to spend long periods of time with Ignacio Zuloaga in the workshop of the ceramist Daniel Zuloaga, Zuloaga's uncle. From that trip to France his work was marked by Impressionism, although his predilection and knowledge of the Spanish classical school can also be appreciated. His subject matter is very varied, although his portraits, landscapes and works related to the world of bullfighting stand out. His works were exhibited in Zaragoza, Bilbao, Madrid, etc., and they are part of important private collections and institutions such as the Prado Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, etc.