OIL ON CANVAS, “THE REAPER”, IGNACIO DÍAZ OLANO, 1890.

Oil on canvas, “The reaper”, Ignacio Díaz Olano, 1890. Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Ignacio Salvador Díaz Ruiz de Olano (Vitoria, 1860-1937), painter and teacher of painters and better known as Ignacio Díaz, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Vitoria as a disciple of Emilio Soubrier Martínez, and at the Llotja of Barcelona (1877 -1880), where he met his teacher Gustavo Bacaristas. After finishing his apprenticeship, he returned to his hometown, where he collaborated in the weekly “El Danzarín” as a cartoonist, under the pseudonym “Galop”. Next, in 1890, he moved to Paris, where he stayed for four years studying anatomical drawing, and did scenography work for the Opera House (there are those who maintain that it is not entirely certain that he was in Paris, however) . Upon returning to Spain, he participated in the Artistic and Industrial Exhibition of Vitoria with several works in 1884, the year in which he also opened his own studio in this city, in which he carried out outstanding teaching work until its closure in 1894 to go to Barcelona. In this same year he would travel to Rome, where he lived for two years. From 1912-1913 he would also work as a drawing teacher at the General and Technical Institute, a job he carried out until he reached the statutory retirement age in 1932. Between 1890 and 1925 Díaz participated in multiple editions of the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, winning a bronze medal in 1895 and a silver medal in 1899 and 1901. His work is preserved in the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Fine Arts Museum in Vitoria and Asturias, the Provincial Museum in Álava, the City Hall and the School of Arts and Crafts in Vitoria, private collections, etc. Numerous experts have highlighted that Ignacio Díaz's art is greatly influenced by the fact that the painter was surrounded by his countrymen and neighbors for a long time. This meant that most of the production consisted of oil paintings of popular and customary subjects, portraits, landscapes and flowers, and still lifes. The present oil painting is a clear example: it shows a reaper, in a half-worked wheat field and with a small sheaf in his hand, looking towards a point outside the painting. Likewise, you can also appreciate his exceptional observation skills and his solid drawing training. In this work, however, progress is already noticeable by presenting light in his compositions, fully integrated, in his work. Hand in hand with light, and little by little, color penetrated, which is also presented in this painting as completely dominated. His search for immediacy will bring the luminous stain and the chromatic flash and, over time, he came closer to naturalistic impressionism without fully entering into this style in order to maintain his personality and formal differences.

· Size: 108 x 72 cm; 110 x 74 cm (marco)