French School; 19th century."The booty".Oil on canvas.Size: 45 x 62 cm; 57 x 73 cm (frame).In this

French School; 19th century.
"The booty".
Oil on canvas.
Size: 45 x 62 cm; 57 x 73 cm (frame).
In this work the painter uses a precise, loose but short brushstroke, which defines the shapes and the qualities of figures and objects, without playing down the importance of the drawing. This turning to the past is due to the strength of Romanticism at the end of the 18th century, which sought to escape from the present by fleeing through time and space. An example of this is the present canvas, in which a multitude of figures are depicted in a large, idealised landscape. The treatment of colour is very notable in the harmony of the golds with coppery tones, the greys and the blue of the sky. The still-life work of the street vendors' belongings, whose tactile qualities are accurately reflected, is particularly noteworthy.
The work can be classified as part of the costumbrismo aesthetic trend. Traditionally, 19th- and 20th-century painting and literature have been interested in popular customs and types. Sorrolla himself commented: "I want to give, always within the verism of my school, a representation of Spain; not looking for philosophies, but for the picturesque of each region". This trend spread throughout Europe, where the tourism caused by the grand tour had awakened a demand for characteristic and picturesque images of each country. Thus, the local painters developed popular themes treated with an idyllic perspective in which the peasants were often depicted in scenes of an appetising and pleasurable nature. For this reason, this type of work was very common and appreciated in art from the 19th century until well into the 20th century. In which the creation of popular patterns portrayed through an idyllic vision where the author is influenced by an aesthetic and romantic heritage, developed during the second half of the 19th century and which derived in a localist conception of the landscape, in works that reflected the love for one's own land and the beauty and lyricism of the everyday, the close, the familiar.