page_title: Costumbrismo
section_title: Costumbrismo in the visual arts in Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Costumbrismo / Costumbrismo in the visual arts in Spain
context_page_description: Costumbrismo is the literary or pictorial interpretation of local everyday life, mannerisms, and customs, primarily in the Hispanic scene, and particularly in the 19th century. Costumbrismo is related both to artistic realism and to Romanticism, sharing the Romantic interest in expression as against simple representation and the romantic and realist focus on precise representation of particular times and places, rather than of humanity in the abstract. It is often satiric and even moralizing, but unlike mainstream realism does not usually offer or even imply any particular analysis of the society it depicts. When not satiric, its approach to quaint folkloric detail often has a romanticizing aspect.
  Costumbrismo can be found in any of the visual or literary arts; by extension, the term can also be applied to certain approaches to collecting folkloric objects, as well. Originally found in short essays and later in novels, costumbrismo is often found in the zarzuelas of the 19th century, especially in the género chico. Costumbrista museums deal with folklore and local art and costumbrista festivals celebrate local customs and artisans and their work.
context_section_description: Costumbrismo is an art form developed by Spanish painters. In the 19th century, a wave of nationalistic fervour took hold, providing the stimulus for painters to focus on local customs (or costumbres).  As in literary costumbrismo, Madrid and Andalusia (particularly Seville) were Spain's two great centers of costumbrismo in the visual arts. Andalusian costumbrista paintings were mainly romantic and folkloric, largely devoid of social criticism. Much of their market was to foreigners for whom Andalusia epitomized their vision of a Spain distinct from the rest of Europe. The costumbrista artists of Madrid were more acerbic, sometimes even vulgar, in portraying the life of lower class Madrid. More of their market was domestic, including to the often snobbish (and often Europeanizing and liberal) elite of the capital. Among other things, the School of Madrid often used large masses of solid color and painted with a broad brush, while the School of Seville painted more delicately. The Madrid paintings have a certain urgency, while the Seville paintings are typically serene, even misty. The Madrid painters focus more on unique individuals, the Sevillianos on individuals as representatives of a type.
  Romantic Andalusian costumbrismo (costumbrismo andaluz) follows in the footsteps of two painters of the School of Cádiz, Juan Rodríguez y Jiménez, "el Panadero" ("the Baker", 1765–1830) and Joaquín Manuel Fernández Cruzado (1781–1856), both associated with Romanticism. The trend was continued by the School of Seville, in a city much more on the path of a foreign clientele. The founding figure was José Domínguez Bécquer (1805–41), father of the poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (see above) and painter Valeriano Bécquer (1833–70), who moved to Madrid. Domínguez Bécquer's influence came as an art teacher, as well as an artist. His student and cousin Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer (1817–79) was known for his acute observation of light and atmosphere. Another of José Domínguez Bécquer's students, the bold and forceful Manuel Rodríguez de Guzmán (1818–67), may have been the genre's strongest painter.
  Other important early figures were Antonio Cabral Bejarano (1788–1861), best known for paintings of individuals theatrically posed against rural backgrounds, and an atmosphere reminiscent of Murillo, and José Roldán (1808–71), also very influenced by Murillo, known especially as a painter of children and urchins. One of Cabral Bejarano's sons, Manuel Cabral Bejarano (1827–91) began as a costumbrista, but eventually became more of a realist. Another son, Francisco Cabral Bejarano (1824–90), also painted in the genre.
  Other painters of the School of Seville were Andrés Cortés (1810–79), Rafael García Hispaleto (1833–54), Francisco Ramos, and Joaquín Díez; history painter José María Rodríguez de Losada (1826–96); and portraitist José María Romero (1815–80).
  Typical subject matter included majos (lower class dandies) and their female equivalents, horsemen, bandits and smugglers, street urchins and beggars, Gypsies, traditional architecture, fiestas, and religious processions such as Holy Week in Seville.
  The School of Madrid was united less by a common visual style than by an attitude, and by the influence of Goya rather than Murillo. Notable in this school were Alenza and Lameyer, both contributors to Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. Alenza, in particular, showed a strong influence from the Flemish painters as well as from Goya. A fine portraitist who tended to take his subjects from among the common people, in some ways he epitomizes the difference between the School of Madrid and that of Seville. For him the "official" Romanticism was a topic to satirize, as in his series of paintings Suicidios románticos ("Romantic suicides").
  Probably foremost in the School of Madrid was Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817–70). An artistic successor to Goya (though a more erratic painter than the master), Lucas Velázquez's work ranged from bullfighting scenes to Orientalism to scenes of witchcraft. His son Eugenio Lucas Villamil (1858–1918) and his students Paulino de 
caption: "Tercio de varas" ("Picadors"), Eugenio Lucas Velázquez c. 1850
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