Landscape of Valdemaqueda
Ca. 1866. Oil on canvas.Not on display
This is a wide view of a spot on the outskirts of this town in the mountains of Madrid. On the side of a hill, a shepherd rests in the shelter of a rock, while his goats are grazing in the meadow. An imposing rock rises up behind them, silhouetted against the sky and distant horizon.
The taste for medium shots, the generous intonation of browns and ochres in the palette and the approach to the landscape, centred on the second terms, marked by the figures, and above all, the large rock as the axis of the natural scenery, place this splendid landscape in the years immediately following his apprenticeship with Carlos de Haes.
It evokes the aesthetic formulations of his master´s own landscapes of the same period, all enveloped in a golden intonation of light and a fresh and rich technique in the description of the landscape and more attentive in the figurines. This places the artist, with this single canvas, among the most select artists of the first Spanish realist landscapes of the 19th century
Carlos de Haes (1826-1898), Madrid, Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2002, p.145-146
