Antonio Reyna Manescau

ANTONIO REYNA MANESCAU (Coín, Málaga, 1859 - Rome, 1937).
"Napoli".
Oil on cardboard.
Attached certificate of authenticity exceeded by the Tioda Gallery (Gijón).
Presents on the back label Barrachina-Ramoneda.
Signed and located in the lower right area.
Measurements: 27 x 38 cm; 45 x 56 cm (frame).
Antonio Reyna's stay in Naples was a significant episode in the evolution of his pictorial language. During his stay in the city, then one of the most active artistic centers of the Mediterranean, the painter came into contact with a cultural environment marked by the Neapolitan Baroque tradition and by the persistence of an intense naturalism inherited from the Caravaggist painting. This context favored in Reyna a renewed attention to the dramatic effects of light and a more direct observation of reality. At the same time, the urban vitality and the human landscape of the city influenced the construction of his motifs, which acquired a more dynamic and narrative dimension. His contact with Naples does not correspond to a single exact date, but to stays and trips during the 1880s and later years, when he was already living in Italy. During that period, after settling in Rome, the artist traveled frequently in southern Italy to study painting and classical antiquities.

Nowadays considered one of the most important Andalusian landscape painters of the 19th century, Antonio Reyna soon discovered his vocation for painting, as well as his innate talent for drawing and his special aptitudes, which led his parents to enroll him in the School of Fine Arts in Malaga. There he was taught, first by Joaquín Martínez de la Vega and later by Bernardo Ferrándiz. From a very young age he exhibited his works regularly, standing out in the local artistic environment for his colorful, attractive compositions and the ease of his brushstroke. His progress would be spectacular, and in 1882 he obtained a pension from the Diputación de Málaga to further his studies in Italy. Reyna had fallen in love with Rome, and in that city he would live forever. In 1885 he traveled to Venice, and from then on he would dedicate most of his production to reproducing Venetian corners, captured with a precious and narrative technique. In fact, he became known as "the painter of Venice". In 1910, on the occasion of his mother's death, Reyna spent some time in his native city. There he was inspired to create another of his most celebrated successes, the canvas "Rancho Andaluz", which he showed at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome the following year. In his painting, certainly novel for the time, the painter shows at all times his skill for drawing, as well as an innate ability for composition, marked by the boldness of his brushstroke and a great chromatic richness. On December 5, 2009, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Antonio Reyna's birth, a large anthological exhibition of his work was inaugurated at the García Agüera Foundation in Malaga. Currently, Antonio Reyna has a museum with his name in Coin, and is also represented in the Fine Arts Museums of Malaga and Boston, the Carmen Thyssen in Malaga and in the gallery of the Vatican Museums, although most of his work is in the hands of individuals, having found the presence of his paintings in France, England, Switzerland and Holland.