Francisco Iturrino played a critical role in shaping modernism in Spain. Thanks to his close relationship with some of the leading artists in Europe at the turn of the century, he was a first-hand witness of the renewal in the arts, and was one of the key artists responsible for introducing the new movements into Spain.

This work is one of the many scenes featuring groups of women, almost always in a celebratory setting, which the painter made between 1904 and 1910, during the long periods of time he spent in Cordoba and Seville. Here one can readily appreciate the bold colouring, the highly expressionist brushwork and the compositional freedom, some of the most outstanding attributes of this artist, who lent great importance to painting instinctively. Through the use of quick execution, he breaks down the forms and creates a picture charged with vibration and motion; downplaying the details of the event or individual features, the figures are represented in painterly masses to intensify the rhythmic sense of the whole.

Within his output, this canvas contains an interesting characteristic inasmuch as it brings together two of Iturrino’s key referents: the stamp of , and especially of Henri Matisse (1869-1954)—as we can see in the heightened colouring—and the even more notable influence of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), visible in the constructivist approach. Worth noting is the organization and simplification of the volumes in geometric planes with contrasting tones, which lend the composition greater dynamism. Equally evident is his mastery in the treatment of colour, which he uses to model the figures and construct the scene, transforming it into the structure to represent a fragmented and vibrant reality. This is also evinced in the background landscape, executed with independent blotches of colour that fit together, in which we can most readily appreciate the legacy of Cézanne.

Soir de fête (Evening party) gives a good account of his personal perception of reality. Greatly influenced by the many journeys he undertook throughout his life, which had a profound effect on his style and spirit, he conveys the fascination he felt towards Andalusia, vouchsafing a completely different vision at odds with the iconography normally used to depict it. Removed from painting conventions, he ignores the more picturesque features in order to focus on the purely visual aspects. The chromatic harmony and the great vitality it irradiates reflect to perfection the joie de vivre the artist discovered in the south of Spain.