Ramon Camins

RAMON CAMINS (1873
"Fisherman".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Work exhibited at the Sala Parés in 1890.
Measurements: 100 x 153 cm; 120 x 169 cm (frame).

Ramón Camins offers us a seafaring scene of great sobriety and naturalism in which a fisherman leaning over a small boat picks up or checks a pot while standing still in calm, shallow waters. The composition is characterized by a silent and contained atmosphere, where the horizon almost dissolves in a grayish and diffuse light that unifies sky and sea. The human figure appears absorbed by his daily work, without anecdotal or heroic will, thus reinforcing the humble and truthful character of the scene.

Camins pays special attention to the lighting effects and the reflections on the water, resolved with delicate brushstrokes and a reduced chromatic range of ochre, greenish and bluish tones. The work conveys a sense of stillness and direct observation of reality, very close to the naturalistic realism of the late nineteenth century.

The painting is closely related to the work of Dionís Baixeras, a contemporary artist with whom he shares an interest in popular and maritime scenes treated from a realistic and deeply human point of view. Both artists moved away from historical or grandiloquent painting to focus on episodes of everyday life, especially linked to the world of work and the working classes. As in many of Baixeras' compositions, here the figure appears integrated into the environment and not conceived as an isolated protagonist. There is also an evident affinity in the treatment of atmospheric light, in the search for contained emotion and in the dignification of humble work. Both Camins and Baixeras participate in a naturalistic sensibility inherited from French realism and the Mediterranean luminist tradition, although in Camins a greater compositional simplification and a more silent and intimate atmosphere can be perceived.