Job on the Dunghill

Gonzalo Carrasco was born in Otumba in the State of México and educated in the bosom of a traditional Catholic family. His interest in painting went hand in hand with his desire to enter the Jesuit seminary- and become a priest, and his religious nature led him to a choose scene from the Book of Job as his subject in the figure-drawing class taught by José Salomé Pina in the National Fine Arts School where he had received a scholarship to study painting. Carrasco and a smattering of other artists, such as José María Ibarrarán y Ponce, continued to show a preference for biblical themes in a period when they had fallen out of favor due to the influence on the aforesaid school of the legislation passed by the liberal government and put into effect by the Ministry of Justice and Public Education. In this and other academic compositions on religious subjects in the late XIXth century, the dominant features were technique, coloring, and the contrastive chiaroscuro that prevailed in Spanish Tenebrist Realism. Moreover, the influence of Baroque masters such as Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) and, above all, José de Ribera( 1590-1652) is clear. In this work, the patriarch, Job, whose half-naked body shows the ravages of age, is cast down on a dunghill with his hands raised in prayer, while, with languishing eyes staring heavenward, he relinquishes himself to the will of God. Worthy of mention is the successful rendering of the subject´s flesh, on which intense theatrical lighting plays, combining with the ruined pillar in the background, the subtle glimpse of an oasis-like landscape on the left, and the dense twilight, to add a theatrical touch to the composition. This piece was awarded first prize for singlefigure compositions at the XXth Exhibition of the San Carlos Academy held in 1881. It entered the MUNAL, as part of the latter's founding endowment, in 1982.