Early 20th century Spanish school. "Children washing... Lot 22

Early 20th century Spanish school. "Children washing clothes", 1915. Oil on canvas. Signed "M. Pérez" and dated in the lower right corner. It presents faults and restorations. Measurements: 160 x 260 cm; 176 x 275 cm (frame). This typical representative genre scene is, like all of them, vigorous and realistic. We can see a lake scene with characters, in which two children hang the clothes they have washed in the crystalline waters of the place. The costumbrista theme is rooted in the Romantic vision which, among other aspects, pays special attention to those traditional, popular or typical customs which reflect what is understood to be the genuine way of being and living of the people of the village, their traditions and values, and does so from a mythical and idealised perspective in which the popular classes, especially those of the rural environment, are always contrasted with the model personified by the growing city, which has grown in the heat of industrialisation. This model of costumbrismo adopted in Romanticism survived for a long time in the European pictorial culture of the 19th century, as later Realism, although it sometimes introduced a more objective and dispassionate vision and focused on the harshness of work, continued to disseminate images of peasants and their tasks, rural customs, traditional trades, in short, much of what was feared would disappear in a few decades.