A. Pulido García (XX) - Lavanderas del Manzanares

“Lavanderas del Manzanares”, Madrid School, costumbrismo, early 20th century – Spain

Technique on support: Oil on canvas
Title of the work: “Lavanderas del Manzanares”
Author: Signed A. Pulido García
School: Madrid School
Period: Early 20th century
Country of origin: Spain
Good condition for its age and use
Total dimensions: 100 x 130 x 9 cm.
Dimensions without frame: 77 x 108 cm.

Exceptional oil on canvas belonging to the Madrid school of the early 20th century; it is a costumbrista scene depicting daily tasks. The painter shows the Manzanares River in the background, on the left a canal where laundresses and field workers with their draft animals’ carts are located. The perspective of the work is composed through parallel diagonals converging to a single point, formed by the river, the canal, the land between them, and the path on the right side of the painting. These diagonals are interrupted by two horizontals, the bridge and the distant forest, which give way to the sky. The colors predominating in the oil are earth tones, such as brown, present in the trees and the roads, and the blues present in the river, the canal, and the sky. The artist’s signature appears in the lower right corner, A. Pulido García.

The work belongs to the Madrid school of the 20th century, probably a follower of the painter Aureliano de Beruete, a renowned landscape painter who trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Due to his comfortable economic situation, he could devote his entire career to painting, especially to landscape or costumbrista genres; today, some of his works can be found in the Prado Museum collections. He would also become an important art collector, eventually owning a drawing by Michelangelo and a work by El Greco. His personal and professional circumstances allowed him to travel across Europe in the late 19th century, where he was influenced by Impressionist aesthetics and formed a close friendship with Claude Monet and Joaquín Sorolla. It is worth noting that his son, also named, would later become director of the Prado Museum between 1918 and 1922.

The tendency or artistic movement of costumbrismo refers to the customs, uses, and traditions of societies, representing the everyday reality of what is depicted, both in the artistic and literary fields. This term became popular during the 19th-century Romanticism, although we can find works included in this genre earlier, such as Bruegel the Elder in the 16th century or Goya’s paintings from the late 18th century. This movement gained popularity in the art world as a reaction against prevailing academic art, the result of French academic influence; beauty in works is no longer found only in lofty or superior themes, but in the very reality surrounding the painter. They are generally paintings with gentler gestures and scenes, with broad brushwork, distant from Neoclassicism, moving toward later Impressionism. In Spain, costumbrista authors include Francisco de Goya in his early period, José Jiménez Aranda or José Domínguez Bécquer, and Eugenio Lucas Velázquez in Madrid.

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