Noche de Verbena (A Night of Verbena)

Madrid’s verbenas, popular fiestas with open-air dancing held in the city's neighbourhoods over the summer months, boasted an atmosphere of localness that was alluring to artists in the late nineteenth century. This interest would gain force in the wake of the premiere of the zarzuela La verbena de la Paloma, in 1894, with its pure, traditional iconography populated by Madrileño chulapos and manolas. New systems of electric lighting, merry-go-rounds, market stalls, colourful shawls and the mix of people of every social stripe would capture the attention of many artists, who would go on to create a verbena sub-genre in the period stretching from the turn of the century to the arrival of modernity in the 1920s.

Noche de Verbena (A Night of Verbena) is one of the few sketches made for the cover of La Esfera, one of the eminent illustrated magazines from this period. Published from 1914 to 1931, it was regarded as a touchstone owing to its colour illustrations and associated artistic and literary collaborations, although its selling price was out of reach for much of the population. For this cover, Lorenzo Aguirre opted for a verbena that was still symbolist, contrasting with the turn-of-the-century costumbrista examples by dint of its darkness, at odds with other more joyous and colouristic verbenas such as those by Maruja Mallo and Carlos Sáenz de Tejada in the 1920s.



Raúl Martínez Arranz