Evening in Seville

This work depicts the river Guadaira, which runs through the artist’s native Seville, Spain. Before attending art school in that city, Sánchez Perrier was apprenticed to a watchmaker, and his meticulous painting technique may extend from his work with small mechanisms. He was also influenced by the Barbizon painters in France, who advocated a realistic depiction of the landscape rather than the creation of idealized images. Sánchez Perrier’s nearly invisible brushwork differs from the loosely applied brushstrokes of many American artists of the time, but he shared their belief in the rural landscape as a site for enlightenment and pleasure.