Agustin Almar

AGUSTÍN ALMAR (Valencia, second half of the XIX century).
"Young woman with mantilla".
Oil on canvas.
Signed on the lower right side.
Measurements: 53 x 39 cm; 77 x 62 cm (frame).
This painting is inscribed within the tradition of the feminine portrait of costumbrista character that had special development in the Spanish painting of the end of the XIX century and beginnings of the XX. The composition presents a young woman in half profile, wrapped in a white mantilla richly suggested by a doughy and vibrant brushstroke. The face, treated with chromatic delicacy, is illuminated by a soft contrast between the warm tones of the flesh and the dark background, a resource that concentrates the viewer's attention on the expression. The mantilla, an identifying element of Spanish women's clothing, becomes the pictorial protagonist here, resolved by means of a loose brushstroke that emphasizes the qualities of the lace and the drape of the fabric.
The painting reveals a technique inherited from the Spanish realist and luminist tradition of the second half of the 19th century, with echoes of Valencian painting linked to academic environments and the development of a refined costumbrismo. The brushstroke is visible and impastoed in the treatment of the fabric, while the face is worked with greater softness and tonal gradation, a contrast that denotes the artist's desire to combine technical virtuosity with a certain spontaneity in execution. This type of portraits, centered on female figures dressed in mantillas or traditional costumes, also responded to the interest of the art market of the time for images that evoked the picturesque and the identity of Spanish culture. Active in Valencia during the second half of the 19th century, Agustín Lamar was trained at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, in that city. He is currently represented in the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia, among other public and private collections.