Horses in the Camet ravines. Mar del Plata.

Oil on canvas, signed. Measurements: 44.2 x 60 cm. Framed artwork.

The horses graze freely near a ravine that overlooks the sea, here showing off a palette of blues, greens and yellows, which in one sector barely reflects the luminosity of the sky, so special, so beautiful. Flowering thistles and sparse grasses cover the resolved semi-desert ground with their open brushwork. In the distance, a small grove dyes the horizon an intense green. They are horses in the ravines of Camet, a small town five kilometers north of Mar del Plata, where the painter was born, the son of a blacksmith and a teacher, and grew up. The horses facing the sea are a composition dear to Castagnino, a symbol of freedom, of these animals, of the vegetation and of nature in its wild state.

Painter, draughtsman and architect, Juan Carlos Castagnino (1908-1978) was a leading exponent of the movement called new realism or social realism. We read the critic María Laura San Martín in Painting in Argentina. Historical and Contemporary Chronicle (Claridad, 2007): “his most notorious plastic virtue was drawing, which he mastered like few others and to which he consecrated his most proven dedication. From this dexterity in handling form, Castagnino extracted the resources that defined his aesthetics and with which he reached the highest achievements of his constant and extensive work. (...) workers, maternity hospitals, and the gaucho (his Martín Fierro is a classic of our painting) showed us that he was always skilful, strong, current, although not worried about following the current trend at all times”.