The round
Ca. 1865. Oil on canvas.Not on display
The influence of Goyaesque models on Eugenio Lucas´s paintings is evident, as he chooses the same themes for his paintings: the Inquisition, bullfighting and gallantry. The artist depicts all of them with an expressive, impastoed execution and a surprising daring, not shying away from ugliness or caricature. In 1855, Eugenio Lucas came into contact with Goya´s Black Paintings, a fact that explains the compositional similarity there may be shared between the central character in The round –a guitarist who raises his eyes to heaven as he sings– and the guitarist in one of Goya´s Black Paintings entitled The Pilgrimage to San Isidro (P00760).
However, in this case, we are not looking at a ghostly vision –despite some of the expressions of the characters in the group on the right– but at a real popular scene where the main musician appears next to a young boy, who is playing the tambourine.
La Musique et les Arts Figures en Espagne., Castres, Musee de Goya, 2000, p.54-55
