José Benlliure

JOSÉ BENLLIURE GIL (Valencia, 1855 - 1937).
"Aquelarre".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the upper left corner.
Provenance: Juan Molina collection.
Measurements: 25 x 35 cm; 45 x 55 cm (frame).

This painting suggests more than it shows, achieving with great formal economy to make us enter in a council of demonic creatures. Witchy faces with sharp noses and toothless mouths, resolved with an ingenious broken stroke and a quick pulse, are lined up before a group of demons playing clarinets and a chorus of little red devils dancing. The women are wrapped under their black robes, as if they were nuns who have disowned God. The colors are pregnant with symbolism: the red of eternal fire, the black of evil, the sienna colors that describe the arid scenery where the coven unfolds? José Benlliure flirts with abstraction in this daring and highly evocative composition.

Brother of the painter Juan Antonio and the sculptor Mariano, José Benlliure cultivated the costumbrista theme and the portrait. He began his artistic studies with Francisco Domingo in Valencia, and then continued his training in Madrid, where he settled in 1869. In 1879 he moved to Rome, where he was director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts between 1903 and 1913. In 1897 he made a trip to Tangier, Algeria and Morocco, where he produced more luminous and free works, influenced by impressionism. From 1900 onwards, his work depicts popular themes. He was an honest and sensitive painter, and his works of popular themes, such as the one we present here, with scenes treated in a direct and spontaneous way, stand out especially. He took part in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, obtaining third medals in the editions of 1876 and 1878 and first in that of 1887. He belonged to the Academies of San Fernando (Madrid), San Lucas (Rome), San Carlos (Valencia), Brera (Milan) and Munich. The most important part of his production is preserved in Valencia, in his House Museum and in the Museum of Fine Arts San Pío V. He is also represented in the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Palace of Charles V in Granada, among others.