Juan Pablo Salinas

JUAN PABLO SALINAS TERUEL (Madrid, 1871 - Rome, 1946).
"Characters".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Signed and located in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 72 x 42 cm; 84 x 55 cm (frame).

Juan Pablo Salinas began his artistic formation in the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in Madrid, although his passage by the classrooms was surely ephemeral. He began to make himself known in 1885, the year in which he participated in the exhibition organized by the Association of Writers and Artists and in the Aragonese Exhibition, being awarded a third class medal in both. Around 1886 he moved to Rome to further his studies thanks to a scholarship granted by the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza. There he attended the International Circle of Fine Arts, as well as the evening classes of the Chigi Academy. He also joined the Spanish artistic colony residing in the city, and worked with his brother, the painter Agustín Salinas, who had been living in Rome since 1883. Both brothers submitted works to the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1887; Juan Pablo sent "Mark Antony and Cleopatra", a classical theme. Like his brother, his true master, Salinas also recreated medieval themes of notable Tuscan influence, with works such as "Romeo and Juliet" or "Scene from the Decameron". His style evolved towards costumbrismo, with special attention to popular Spanish and Italian scenes, such as "Una boda en Aragón" (A Wedding in Aragón), "Regreso de los vendimiadores" (Return of the Grape Harvesters) and other works. His career remained closely linked to that of his brother until he met, on a trip to Paris, the work of Ernest Meissonier, whose influence led him to focus on the genre of casacones, with which he achieved great sales success in France, Italy, Central Europe, Russia and America. During these years he exhibited in the Salons Roger and began his famous compositions of eighteenth-century atmosphere, in which characters dressed in the fashion of the time appear in the context of luxurious interiors, meticulously detailed through a precious technique, which is recreated in the colorful description of clothes and lace but, above all, in the masterful treatment of female flesh tones, deliberately sensual. Also at this stage Salinas made several series for the decoration of large salons. In addition to these themes, he also painted orientalist scenes and church interiors. In the last stage of his career there is a decrease in detail, a looser and less descriptive character. Juan Pablo Salinas is currently represented in the Prado Museum (his work is on deposit at the Asturias Fine Arts Museum in Oviedo), the Bellver Collection in Seville and other public and private collections.