Self-portrait
Ca. 1915. Oil on canvas.Not on display
In this self-portrait Juan Antonio Benlliure captures his image using an eminently realistic conception of pictorial art. He uses a uniform brushstroke technique that reminds us of the world of photography. This canvas does not make the slightest concession neither to fantasy or lyricism nor even to those elements and nuances to which painters resort to in order to lighten and embellish their works. The absence of background or surroundings obligatorily directs the attention towards its concrete, rotund and massive character. The nineteenth-century essences impregnate him and turn him into a character so representative of a middle class that had already made constancy, seriousness, neatness and firmness its maximum values.
Artistas pintados: retratos de pintores y escultores del siglo XIX en el Museo del Prado, Madrid, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Dirección Gener, 1997, p.180
