- Type of work: Easel painting
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Approximate dimensions: 80 x 111 cm
- Subject: Marine
- Title: Marina
- Author: Manuel López Ruiz (1869-1960)
- Chronology or Year: 20th Century
- Historical-artistic analysis:
Style: Seascape painting, within the regionalism characteristic of the Canarian plastic art of the first half of the 20th century, since it makes reference to the Atlantic Ocean, a fundamental element in the insular context.
Description: It is the painter’s vision of an open, high sea, made the sole protagonist of the scene. It is a dense, solitary sea, full of strength and movement, crossed by the diagonals of the waves, whose crests break into white foam that contrasts with the ultramarine blue of the waters. A leaden gray sky, with storm clouds, reinforces the vision and the power of nature, built with a meticulous workmanship of smooth surfaces and correct drawing, with great skill in the application of color, in a range of blues and grays, with which he achieves the mass and volume of the waters within an academic language.
Date of receipt: No information has been found to date. After moving to the new building in 1935.
Remarks: Linked to the Casino since the first decades of the twentieth century, López Ruiz collaborated in the decoration of the old building, both occasionally on the occasion of the celebration of a party, as in the realization of tapestries for the ornamentation of its walls, one of which hung in 1907, to which two more were added in 1922, some donated as payment of his membership fees along with some other painting. At present there is only a marine of his, made after the construction of the new building in the thirties, which adorned the walls of the mezzanine in the sixties, according to the History of the Casino Valeriano Weyler.
About the author: Manuel López Ruiz (Cádiz 1869 – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1960) studied nautical studies and began drawing with campaign notes during the war in Africa, completing this vocation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cadiz and later in Madrid. Moved to Tenerife in 1895, he obtained a teaching position at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios Artísticos. He later traveled to Cuba, where he decorated the Galician Center and the National Theater. In Tenerife he participated in the decoration of the Teatro Leal de La Laguna, in San Marcos de Icod and in the Parroquia de los Silos, but he was above all a painter of seascapes, especially of high seas, the category most sought after by the bourgeoisie of the time. With this production he participated in the Exhibition of Canarian Artists of the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, held in Madrid in 1943.
Bibliography:
Archive of the Casino de Tenerife
Valeriano WEYLER: The small history of a great casino (The one in Santa Cruz de Tenerife). Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1964.
Agustín GUIMERÁ RAVINA, Alberto DARIAS PRÍNCIPE: El Casino de Tenerife 1840 – 1990, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1992.
Carmen FRAGA GONZÁLEZ: “Two painters from Cadiz in Tenerife”, in Anales de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Cádiz, no 3, (1985), pp.7 – 16.
