MANUEL PICOLO LÓPEZ (Murcia 1855 - 1912)."Battle scene with orientalist warrior".Watercolour on paperSigned in the lower right corner.Measurements: 52 x 34,5 cm; 99 x 77 cm (frame).Manuel Picolo López stood out as a painter of landscape and genre themes. He trained at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, from where he would often travel to Paris to imbibe the new European artistic trends. He often presented his works at the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, where he won the bronze medal in the 1892 edition for his work Las fiestas de Baco ("The Feasts of Bacchus"). Since then he has received numerousmissions from the Diputación de Murcia to decorate institutional buildings, which brought him great fame in his homeland. From 1876 he produced various posters for festivities such as the Burial of the Sardine and participated on several occasions in the so-called 'Juegos Florales', an artistic and literarypetition. Greatly influenced by the teachings he received at the School of Fine Arts, as well as by the artists with whom Picolo alternated during his stays in Paris, the Murcian artist's works stand out for the firmness of his brushstroke when ites to capturing the character of the figures depicted. Thus, in the exquisite watercolour with an Orientalist theme shown here, the tension between two Arab soldiers armed with spingards in the middle of a battlefield has been masterfully depicted. In addition to Orientalism, another of Picolo's genres is genre painting. In his works it ismon to find peasant girls surrounded by a bucolic atmosphere, satirical scenes with picarones friars, bullfighters who, indifferent, await the hour of the bullfight between strumming guitars and flamenco sounds... Picolo, who also painted the ceiling of the coffee and dance rooms of the noble building of the Casino in Madrid, knew how to transmit through his works his passion for vibrant and luminous colours, while he also demonstrated his delicacy in his portraits. He was thus a painter who, despite the restrictions of the small format imposed by the bourgeois clientele, did not shy away from depicting the various themes in vogue at the time,bining a loose brushstroke with meticulous detail. Settled in Madrid, Manuel Picolo also worked prolifically as an illustrator for publications of the time such as La ilustración Española y Americana, La Ilustración de Levante, Blanco y Negro, Nuevo Mundo, La Lidia, etc. This work gave him the opportunity to win several prizes and thus increase his artistic recognition.Dimensions: 52 x 34.5 cm; 99 x 77 cm (frame).