José Beulas

(Santa Coloma de Farnés, Gerona, 1921 - Huesca, 2017)

Alameda

ca. 1982

oil on canvas

33 x 46.2 cm

Inv. no. 1499

BBVA Collection Spain


For Beulas, landscape—a “lived, deeply-felt landscape”—is the sole focus of his painting.
 
This is an example of his mature work, at a moment when both subject matter and palette are imbued with the colour and texture of the plateau in Huesca. These were the years when he alternated his residence between Madrid, Barcelona, Torla, Santa Coloma de Farnés and Huesca, before deciding to settle his studio definitively in this last-named town in Aragon.
 
The artist used black and white photographs he developed himself as a way of capturing images of the landscape in Huesca that would become the focal point of his creation.
 
This work, similar in technique and dimensions to Sotón, also in the BBVA Collection, reveals to the beholder the severity of the landscapes painted by this artist, stripped off any bright tones, the result of his experimentation with chromatic reduction. Beulas uses a palette dominated by various hues of ochre, dun and grey. The horizon lines, with the wheat field in the foreground, the undergrowth in the background and the sky are well defined through several layers of colour interrupted only by the upwards direction of the leafless trees speaking of an autumnal landscape.