The last resort

The scene is set in a pawnshop, a sordid place where the poorest people had to go as a last resort to survive. This theme is a variant of social painting, which sought to highlight, through moral denunciation, the great differences afflicting a world fraught with contradictions. The Monte de Piedad, created earlier than pawnshops, was greatly developed back then. This institution was intended to provide a loan to the helpless, without charging exorbitant interests. Be that as it may be, the great feelings of anguish experienced by families suffering with the idea of leaving behind or losing what little they had in order to feed themselves entailed a human drama that was recreated both in literature and art on multiple occasions. Many times, the idea of gathering something of value that could be used to obtain a few coins, or the tense wait until finding out how much money could be paid for it, often became the emotional plot of paintings and novels. Gonzalo Bilbao approached this issue in a painting that had profound international resonance. This painting entails a harsh interpretation on the subject. A waiting room of a pawnshop or Monte de Piedad is depicted. Two women are seated on the left side: a poor old woman holding a bundle over her lap, and a younger woman to her left, both seemingly waiting before the door at which many people crowd together. Even though the faces – like the whole painting – are less defined, the pensive and dejected expressions of both women become useful in drawing attention to the human drama. The painter reveals, in this case, that he is a connoisseur of modern formal expressive elements, which strongly contribute to an atmosphere of desolation. This is achieved through many abstract devices, not always literary: the evident misery of the place, which looks like an extension of their own souls; the oppression of the framing, a metaphor of the anguish they live by; the detachment of the figures, an extension of their own isolation; and, above all, the spatial emptiness produced by the generous representation of the surface of the floor against the disregarded the women, who are nothing amidst the nothingness (Reyero, C. in: ‘El último recurso’ [The last resort], Ternura y Melodrama. Pintura de escenas familiares en tiempos de Sorolla [Affection and Melodrama. Paintings of family scenes during Sorolla’s time], Conselleria d’Educació y Cultura, 2003, p. 332).