JUAN BAUTISTA DE GUZMÁN (Granada, 1850 - Barcelona,... Lot 18

JUAN BAUTISTA DE GUZMÁN (Granada, 1850 - Barcelona, 1898). "Flamenca", 1891. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Measurements: 86 x 46 cm; 108 x 68 cm (frame). Representative of the Andalusian costumbrismo, Juan Bautista de Guzmán specialised in popular scenes of bullfighters, peasants, taverns and courtyards of Granada. On this occasion he offers us a scene set in the interior of an Andalusian courtyard with a sandy floor. The protagonist, a lady dressed in a flamenco dress and draped in a Manila shawl, is leaning jauntily against a wall on which the show is being advertised. Costumbrista genre painting was a characteristic exponent of Andalusian folklore during the period of the rise of Romanticism and 19th-century Orientalism. Traditionally, Spanish painting and literature have been interested in popular customs and types. The arrival of Romanticism enlivened this trend, bringing to the Hispanic tradition the vision that foreigners had of our people, due to the snobbery of a Europeanising and liberal national bourgeoisie which, also due to foreign influence and under the Romantic fashion, turned its eyes to the people and monuments of the past. This, which was general throughout Spain, was particularly prevalent in Andalusia, as this land was the dream destination of foreigners, and where the influence of the vision they had of the Spaniards and their peculiar customs had to be felt most strongly. Juan Bautista de Guzmán Orante was a Spanish painter born in Granada but settled in Malaga as a child. The Malaga painter Leoncio Talavera passed on his love of painting to him. He painted his first picture by copying a painting by his friend Talavera. In 1879 he took part in the Cadiz Exhibition, winning a silver medal, and in 1881 he exhibited his works at the National Exhibition in Madrid. After settling in Barcelona, he took part with two paintings in the Fine Arts Exhibition of the Catalan capital in 1888 and 1891 with "Garden", "A Wrong Way", "A Hungarian Family Begging for Charity", "A Burro muerto la barley al rabo" and "Sensibility", as well as in the 1896 edition.