Paradises and Landscapes in the Carmen Thyssen Collection. From Brueghel to Gauguin
31 March - 7 October 2012
A Walk by the River, c. 1890
Oil on panel, 26.7 x 34.3 cm CTB.1997.29The scene is set on the bank of a river, a recurrent and typical setting in Emilio Sánchez-Perrier’s landscapes. This time he has chosen to depict the open space of the Seville countryside, with a winding a stream that is a tributary of another larger river, perhaps the Guadaira as it flows through the Gandul plains from the lands of Arahal.
The countryside is in the fullness of its greenery; the first blooms are appearing on a peaceful day in March or April. It may also be the banks of the Guillena, another of the spots haunted by Sánchez-Perrier in the eighties and nineties.
The attention to detail characteristic of his artistic practice, which in all probability took a photograph as its starting point, is complemented by a centred composition, with a detailed study of reflections, where a rowing boat is being hauled ashore by a labourer whose family has just disembarked and is waiting for him to complete his task.
The clear, peaceful atmosphere with its sharp photographic objectivity endows the composition with a feeling of calmness and transparency, revealing a blissful spring reflected by the leisurely pace of the country folk, in a work full of felicitous visual elements.
Juan Fernández Lacomba
