JOSÉ JIMÉNEZ ARANDA

(1837 / 1903)

JOSE JIMENEZ ARANDA Seville (1837 / 1903) "Longing for impossible love", 1867

Oil on canvas. Signed, located and dated in the lower right corner. On the reverse inscription "J. Jiménez Aranda / Jerez 1867 / Inspired by Rhyme XI / by GA Becquer" This beautiful painting was made by José Jiménez Aranda in Jerez de la Frontera, at a time when the painter was already thirty years old. At the end of 1867, he left Seville and settled in this city, where he made the models for the execution of the stained glass windows of the church of San Miguel and a series of works with themes of romantic tradition and full of sensitivity. This stay allowed him to come into contact with the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie of Jerez, being hired to paint numerous portraits and customs paintings that were requested by the great families. The position he had achieved in society allowed him to meet Dolores Velázquez Mancera, whom he married the following year and with whom he started a family. At this stage of his production, his paintings show contemporary historical events, tragicomics, personal experiences and notes taken in situ of landscapes, loose figures of people, animals and objects. Sometimes they also deal with imaginary interpretations of their author, inspired by arguments from contemporary literature; a fantastic example is the canvas shown here inspired by the work of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the most important poet of Spanish Romanticism. Rhyme XI, "I am ardent, I am brunette", presents a tripartite structure divided into three stanzas in which women appear embodying different virtues: a passionate first, a tender second and an unreal third, which is only a ghost, and will be the one chosen by the poet as a yearning for an impossible love. This will become a suffering being, a pursuer of fantasies that have no materialization, fulfilling the ideals of the romantic lover. This composition, and what is represented on the canvas, also shows a close relationship with one of his Legends: The Moonbeam, published on February 13, 1862. Its protagonist is Manrique, a poet who loved solitude and gave free rein to his imagination by creating fantastic universes inhabited by strange creatures. Nature is, both in the poem and in the painting, the refuge of the romantic hero; solitary and conducive to accompanying the feeling of reverie: "He believed that, at the bottom of the waves of the river, among the moss of the fountain and on the vapors of the lake, there lived mysterious women, fairies, sylphs or undines, who exhaled laments and sighs or sang and laughed in the monotonous murmur of the water, a murmur that he heard in silence trying to translate it." The execution of this canvas at the end of 1867 coincides with the moment when he met his future wife: Dolores Velázquez Mancera.The romantic longing for love was materialized in this delicate painting that has a precedent in his production: The Happy Painter, from 1862; a work in which the artist expressed his desire to see his own family formed, in which he would feel fortunate sharing work and home. Measurements: 52 x 40.5 cm.