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Dimensions: 95 by 63.5cm., 37¼ by 25in.
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Provenance: Family of the artist; thence by descent
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Literature: El Caballero del Libro Amarillo, 'Benjamín Palencia, intérprete de la raza', El Pueblo Manchego Suplemento Ilustrado, July 1921, illustrated (as El Romancero)
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Notes: PROPERTY OF A SPANISH PRIVATE COLLECTION
Painted circa 1920, the present work is one of a small group of important early oil paintings that Palencia painted on the theme of the book; others include El grabador and El encuadernador.
The formative influence of El Greco on Palencia is immediately evident in the present work: the sitter's elongated physique, gaunt face, attenuated hands and imposingly high hat; the confident brush strokes and strikingly bold colouring; and the positioning of the figure in front of the backdrop of Toledo, El Greco's home town, all reflect the artist's debt to the sixteenth-century master.
Educated in Madrid, it was in the Prado Museum that Palencia first became acquainted with El Greco's work. The artist's conscious reference to his exalted fellow countryman, however, is more than a mere visual quote. It expresses as well the importance that he attached to Spain its history and his desire to pay tribute to Spanish culture in his paintings. His interest in this theme stemmed in part from his acquaintance with the writer and poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, and leading figures in Madrid's cultural circles of the 1920s including Lorca and Alberti, influential figures who encouraged him to balance the modern with the traditional in his works.
Palencia's juxtaposition of old and new took a step further in 1927, when he founded the Vallecas School in Madrid together with Alberto Sánchez. Palencia's aim was to refresh the visual arts in Spain in response to Parisian avant-garde ideas. Attracted to the towns and settlements on the outskirts of Madrid, he was particularly drawn to the village of Vallecas, where he recreated the dry and austere Castillian landscape in compositions that echoed Cubism and Surrealism. Palencia's interest in Castille shares the concerns of the writers, intellectuals and artists of the Generación del 98 who promoted a re-valuation of traditional Spanish culture and values.
