Manuel Barrón

MANUEL BARRÓN (Seville, 1814 - 1884).
"Mill of Alcalá de Guadaira and landscape with waterfall".
Oil on canvas (x2).
Attached report of Don Enrique Valdivieso.
They have frames of the nineteenth century.
Signed.
Measurements: 84 x 102 cm (x2); 100 x 118 cm (frames, x2).
Following the words of Don Enrique Valdivieso "Enrique Valdivieso González, emeritus professor of art history at the University of Seville, refers to two paintings on canvas that represent a Landscape with walkers and a Landscape with the Algarrobo mill in Alcalá de Guadaira. These two works are signed by Manuel Barrón (1814 - 1894), an artist who belongs to the Sevillian romantic period, and can be dated around 1860.
Barrón's artistic production was mainly dedicated to landscape painting, becoming the most important Sevillian artist of his time in this specialty. His vision of nature fits perfectly into the romantic mentality and, therefore, he represents it in an idealized way, creating scenes with a peaceful and serene geography, in which in the foreground he depicts groves and bushes, which give way to distant backgrounds, illuminated by sunlight with golden reflections, typical of sunset. Barrón's idyllic vision is perfectly reflected in the first of these works, in which a couple of peasants, with a child and a dog, are seated on the banks of a small stream. In the background, some walkers appear. The sense of peace and country calm is clearly reflected through a nature flooded with warm, orange lights that contrast with clear blues. These effects intensify the bucolic and pleasant sense of the scene.
The second painting represents a nature crossed by the Guadaira River, on whose banks a group of peasants are picnicking. The artist describes the riverbed and its banks, where the unmistakable presence of the Algarrobo mill, with its crenellated tower, appears. Barrón was one of the first landscape painters who came to paint in Alcalá de Guadaira, thus being one of the founders of the so-called Alcalá school, in which later participated such important artists as Sánchez Perrier and García Rodríguez. Barrón was one of the first artists to notice the beauty of this town, surrounded by pine forests and crossed by the Guadaira River. For this reason, he dedicated some of his best paintings to describe this town".