- Type of work: Large format easel painting
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Approximate dimensions: Pending measurements due to inaccessibility
- Subject: Domestic interior
- Title: Canary home
- Author: Ángel Romero Mateos (1875-1965)
- Chronology or Year: 1890
- Historical-artistic analysis:
Style: It is genre painting, within the costumbrista tradition of the last third of the 19th century.
Description: This is an interior painting depicting a scene of daily life in a Canarian home. In an atmosphere of semi-darkness, some characters watch over the sleep of a child: from left to right, two seated women, a standing woman who is ironing, and an old man sitting with his back to the viewer occupies the foreground. They all surround the cradle where the child lies, the central element of the circular composition with which the painting is constructed and the characters and objects are distributed. The luminous effects achieved by the treatment of the light that enters directly from the outside through the half-open door located at the back of the room, but illuminating only part of the scene, while the rest is in shadow or under the light filtered by the red curtain of the window located on the left wall, which manages to highlight the objects, especially the white of the sheets and recreate the intimacy of the moment. The clothing and the type of headdress worn by the characters, as well as the furniture that adorns the humble room – the chiguerguera chair, the type of cradle, the wicker basket, etc. – demonstrate the taste for the exaltation of the Canary Islands, so characteristic of the costumbrista painting of the period indicated.
Date of receipt: It became part of the patrimony of the Casino de Tenerife in 1907, according to the Memory read at the General Meeting of December 27, 1907 (point 17), which indicates that it was ceded, “almost given” by the artist himself.
Observations: In the documentation of the casino it has appeared under the title “The three generations” until the publication of the book El Casino de Tenerife (1840 – 1990).where Professor Alberto Darias Príncipe corrects this error, since the work was presented with the title “Hogar canario” in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1901, as it appears in the catalog of the same, occasion in which it was awarded with the Consideration of Third Class Medal.
Restorations: Already in 1980 and in view of the situation of this canvas, Mr. Opelio Rodríguez Peña, then President of the Casino, expressed his concern and suggested the convenience of informing Mr. Rafael Delgado about it. A restoration was carried out by Isabel Concepción Rodríguez, concluded in the first months of 1988 to the satisfaction of the Board of Directors. It is listed in the Casino’s inventory as No. 0244. This painting participated in the exhibition VENTANA AL ARTE, organized by the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, curated by Luis Ortega Abrahan and held at the Auditorio de Tenerife from March 15 to April 13, 2007.
About the author: Ángel Romero Mateo (Cádiz 1875- Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1965), born in Cádiz, moved to Tenerife with his family in 1880, where he took up residence. He received his training at the Academia de Bellas Artes de Cádiz and at the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, where he also attended the studio of Manuel Domínguez and Joaquín Sorolla from 1899 onwards. Three periods are established in his production: the first (1895-1902), with a predominance of the chiaroscuro range, the second marked by the influence of Sorolla, where he clarifies the palette and pays special attention to light, and a third period, after abandoning painting for 40 years to attend to family business, between 1949-1954, in which he mainly painted landscapes. He participated on three occasions in the National Exhibitions, where his work did not go unnoticed, deserving both in 1901 and 1904 the consideration of Third Class Medal.
Bibliography:
Archives of the Casino de Tenerife: Minutes of the Board of Directors: 24-4-1980, page 111; 21-4-1988, page 25. Correspondence between Ricardo Melchior Navarro, president of the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife and Domingo Febles Padrón, then president of the Casino de Tenerife regarding the loan of the painting Hogar canario for the exhibition Ventana Al Arte. Fernando CASTRO BORREGO: Ángel Romero Mateos. Analysis of costumbrismo in Canarian painting. Servicio de Publicaciones de la Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1976.
Agustín GUIMERÁ RAVINA, Alberto DARIAS PRÍNCIPE: El Casino de Tenerife (1840- 1990.) Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1992.
