Tuesday, November 1
DANIEL PEREA Y ROJAS
“Picador citando al toro”. It’s one of 17 beautiful sheets of bullfighting scenes drawn by Daniel Perea in his álbum “España. Toros”.
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| Click to enlarge or download |
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| Click to enlarge or download |
Daniel Perea y Rojas, deaf painter (1834-19099 is considered one of the most talented artists, publicity posters and lithographs of the second half of the nineteenth century.
Let’s consider briefly the history of Tauromachy engravings first. Previous to Mr. Perea, Antonio Carnicero was the first to show all the bullfight sequence from the beginning to the end with a graphic description of all the courses on it. It is the model that inspired all the subsequent artists.
The second great Tauromachy was Francisco de Goya’s dramatic illustrations, 40 etching pictures painted between 1814 and 1816.
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At the middle of the nineteenth century, Gustave Doré stood out in France while in Spain the presence of the excellent watercolourist Daniel Perea was remarkable. He was an illustrator for “La Lidia” magazine, one of the first and more significant taurine publications of the time. This magazine introduced important technological innovations such as chromolithography, that improved colour and strokes in pictures. In an age when photography did not exist, the work of these artists became the only graphic elements available to give evidence about what was happening in the bullfighting rings.
In the twentieth century, another great Tauromachy flourished, Pablo Picasso’s 26 aquatint illustrations. And finally I must mention the outstanding twenty first century taurine artist José María Guerrero Medina. His Tauromachy is composed by 12 etching engravings remembering Picasso and inspired by José Tomás.
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As for Daniel Perea’s other works, I will mention “A los toros”. It is an album composed of 28 black watercolour sheets of the entire course of a bullfight, together with 4 page song with chromolith illustrations in the margins, “La Marcha de la Manolería”, from la zarzuela “Pan y toros”. It contains explanations of the scenes on the opposing page in Spanish, French and English. Each illustration is also printed with parallel text in these languages.The plates from this album are also available in colour. It is a collection of 24 lithographs without the explanations and with captions just in Spanish.
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| Click to enlarge or download |
As I have these albums, if any of you are interested in these illustrations, just email me and I will give you all the digitalized copies on them in jpg format. (Until the end of November 2011). After this date, you will have to pay for them a small price –let’s say, 1€ for black and white digital copies, 3€ for coloured ones. I will donate the money to charities or to any educational project.
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