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Lot Essay
Ramón Casas was a leading Spanish avant-garde painter, who studied in Paris before returning in 1890 with his close friend, the colourist Santiago Rusiñol. This painting belongs to a large body of work in which Casas sought inspiration from everyday scenes and domestic interiors.
In Las Horas Tristas stillness, subtle gradations of colour and soft, suffused light combine into a composition of profound poetry and melancholy. The painting is reminiscent in many ways of the introverted 'Symphonies' of James McNeill Whistler and the muted interiors of Vilhelm Hammershøi (fig. 1). And in its pose, of a woman seen from behind, unguarded and alone, the painting reminds us of Degas' portrayals of bathing women and off-stage ballerinas.
The painting is a partner to one of Casas's best known images, La grasse matinée (fig. 2), in which the artist shows the model waking in the same room. In both paintings she serves simply as a pretext which allows the artist to achieve powerful effects of light, colour and texture, using the subtlest of means and the slightest of details. For example, the finial of the bedpost stands out for its linearity and geometric form against the softness of the quilt, and the splashes of yellow colour on the Liberty quilt play like ripples across a calm sea.
The painting is powerfully composed, anchored by the solid lines of the chair, which roots the woman to the spot, and contrasts with the softness of the bedding and light. Casas leads us into a hidden world which is not so much a portrait (the woman's feature's remain unseen) but of an interior, private and pared down to simple but powerful effect.
In Las Horas Tristas stillness, subtle gradations of colour and soft, suffused light combine into a composition of profound poetry and melancholy. The painting is reminiscent in many ways of the introverted 'Symphonies' of James McNeill Whistler and the muted interiors of Vilhelm Hammershøi (fig. 1). And in its pose, of a woman seen from behind, unguarded and alone, the painting reminds us of Degas' portrayals of bathing women and off-stage ballerinas.
The painting is a partner to one of Casas's best known images, La grasse matinée (fig. 2), in which the artist shows the model waking in the same room. In both paintings she serves simply as a pretext which allows the artist to achieve powerful effects of light, colour and texture, using the subtlest of means and the slightest of details. For example, the finial of the bedpost stands out for its linearity and geometric form against the softness of the quilt, and the splashes of yellow colour on the Liberty quilt play like ripples across a calm sea.
The painting is powerfully composed, anchored by the solid lines of the chair, which roots the woman to the spot, and contrasts with the softness of the bedding and light. Casas leads us into a hidden world which is not so much a portrait (the woman's feature's remain unseen) but of an interior, private and pared down to simple but powerful effect.