JIMÉNEZ ARANDA, José

Spanish painter, sibling of Luis Jiménez Aranda. He trained in Seville under Manuel Cabral (1828-1891) and with Eduardo Cano de la Peña (1823-1897), showing an early interest in genre paintingGLOSSARYThe depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents.. This was perhaps due to the tradition of RomanticismGLOSSARYA term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Resulting in part from the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantic movements had in common only a revolt against the prescribed rules of classicism. The basic aims of romanticism were various: a return to nature and to belief in the goodness of humanity; the rediscovery of the artist as a supremely individual creator; the development of nationalistic pride; and the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect. In addition, romanticism was a philosophical revolt against rationalism. in Seville, and Jiménez Aranda was already exhibiting pictures of this type at the Exposición Nacional in Madrid in 1864.

He went to Rome, where he befriended Mariano José Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal, becoming the most representative of his Spanish followers. Jiménez Aranda attempted to exploit Fortuny y Marsal's style, known as Fortunismo or 'preciosity', and concentrated on the small genreGLOSSARYIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature. painting or tableautin, with which he gained remarkable success. Fortuny y Marsal's influence can be seen in such works by Jiménez Aranda as Room behind an Apothecary Shop and The Bibliophiles (1879). These often ironic paintings look back to the 18th century and have something of the atmosphere of Goya's work. However, the skilled draughtsmanship, detailed execution and fine brushwork often bring them closer to the style of Ernest Meissonier than to the minute detailing and brilliant touch of Fortuny y Marsal.

Jiménez Aranda also lived in Paris, where his Spanish tableautin achieved notable success. Around 1890 he became influenced by realismGLOSSARYRealism (with an upper case "R"), also known as the Realist school, denotes a mid-nineteenth century art movement and style in which artists discarded the formulas of Neoclassicism and the theatrical drama of Romanticism to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects. One of the main representatives and spokesmen was the painter Gustave Courbet. In the dispute about ways to represent reality, Realism rebelled against the idealistic and classicist tendencies in painting. and was later interested in the problems of painting light as a result of his contact with Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida and Gonzalo Bilbao y Martinez (b. 1860).