The Artist's Son, Ignacio, Seated
1887.Not on display
Ignacio Pinazo’s fondness of childhood scenes led him to make frequent sketches -both drawings and oils- of his two sons, José and Ignacio. The younger child, Ignacio, was especially handsome and his delicate features, curly brunette hair and expressiveness especially attracted the painter’s attention. He therefore appears in numerous works, many of which are now at the Museo del Prado. Here, he is barely four years old, but his personality is already very clear. Pinazo’s first biographer, González Martí, called this work The Pensive Child. Possibly somewhat tired of posing for his father, young Ignacio reclines rather languidly on his wooded and wicker chair while holding some apples with which he barely entertains himself. Nevertheless, he directs a smiling gaze at his father.
The sharp angle of his head and the intense illumination that enters from the left, producing a marked contrast between light and shadows, brings considerable light to the child’s face. Pinazo used the same techniques in various self-portraits, including one at the Museo del Prado, in which the contrast is particularly dramatic.
Also quite characteristic of Pinazo’s work is the use of black here. Energetic brushstrokes powerfully define the folds in the child’s clothing as well as their contrast with the patch of dark green in the background. The execution is very free, leaving some parts of the anatomy quite sketchy, including the left hand. The right, which is closer to the viewer, is much more clearly resolved. The broad brushstrokes and sober tonalities of gray and chestnut contrast with the golden shine of the apple that young Ignacio holds in his right hand. Those dark colors recall the artist’s fondness of the 17th-century Spanish tradition. Also reminiscent of that tradition is the boy’s natural posture, captured in its most immediate spontaneity by the artist.
That spontaneity is characteristic of his portraits and is won of his main contributions. In his entry speech at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, Pinazo pointed out that the finest works by painters are from that genre, the touchstone for determining each artist’s greater or lesser degrees of talent, observation and sentiment. This final aspect, sentiment, is clearly reflected in works such as the present one, which is the result of an immediate and direct effusion towards the subject (Text drawn from Barón, J.: El Siglo XIX en el Prado, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2007, pp. 354-355).
