Spanish school of the late 19th century.

Late 19th-century Spanish school.
“Oriental Landscape.”
Oil on panel.
With an apocryphal signature, “E. Lucas,” in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 23 x 34 cm; 44 x 56 cm (frame).

This painting is part of the late 19th-century Orientalist movement, due to its naturalistic depiction of the East, and at the same time features an impasto technique with warm tones—primarily ochres and earth tones—that reveals the hand of a Spanish artist familiar with Francisco de Goya.

Orientalism emerged in the 19th century as a consequence of the Romantic spirit of escape through time and space. The early Orientalists sought to reflect what was lost, what was unattainable, in a dramatic journey doomed to failure from the outset. Like Flaubert in *Salambó*, the painters created meticulous portraits of imagined Orient and pasts, recreated down to the last detail yet ultimately unknown and idealized. During the second half of the 19th century, however, many of the painters who traveled to the Near East in search of that invented reality discovered a different and new country, one whose peculiarities stood out beyond European stereotypes and prejudices. Thus, this new Orientalist school left behind the beautiful odalisques, harems, and slave markets to paint nothing but what they saw: the real Orient in all its everyday dimensions. Along with this shift in vision came a technical and formal change; since the goal is no longer to recreate an imagined world in every detail, the brushstrokes take on an Impressionist fluidity, and the artists focus not so much on depicting local characters and customs as on faithfully capturing the atmosphere of the place—the very identity of the North African peoples.