One year ago today I wrote an article in which I talked about the discovery of a third painting with a Córdoba theme by this great Spanish impressionist. But yet again I find myself with a new painting. This time Regoyos depicted the Convent Madre de Dios in black and white. The Convent is located beside the old market and very close to Viento10. The lack of color makes it a bit less powerful, specially being a painting by Regoyos, but it gives us nonetheless interesting information about his days in Córdoba.
It seems like Regoyos turn the garden of the Agustín Moreno Arts School into his personal studio, the peace and quiet made it a perfect place for it. Three out of four paintings were produced here. While his colleague and friend Pío Baroja walks the city and visits friends like the bookseller Salvador Pedro de Vegas Hernández –who would be murdered in 1936 during the Civil War–, Regoyos chooses to spend the hours in this beautiful garden working.
How many more paintings of Cordoba did Regoyos produce? Well, it does not have an easy answer since most of his work was bought at the time by private collectors and as of today the whereabouts of many of his paintings are a mystery. A proper rigorous catalog of this impressionist Spanish painter is nowadays almost a lost cause. That is why this bookworm feels quite happy with this discovery.
Below you can read what the magazine said about this painting painted by Darío Regoyos in 1904.
Who is Darío de Regoyos?
Art critic Manuel Gálvez wrote the following words for the catalog of an exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1916 and, I must say, he managed to produce a good portrait of the artist.
“Only Regoyos is absolutely sincere, spontaneous and intimate. He observes nature and simple things calmly, emotional, he carries the soul of a poet but far from the flamboyant display of literature. There is not a single trace of museum air in his paintings, there is nothing interfering with his sincerity. It is austere yet naive, and so austere that many have called him the Franciscan painter; and so naive that it sometimes gives the impression of being an incapable painter or a mere student.
He loves Spain like a fervent man and artist, and he believes that the motherland is the most interesting world there is for a painter. In Spain, indeed, all comes with character: the landscape, the architecture, the traditions. Regoyos, traveling not just as a painter but as a total artist, is looking for adventure, carrying his paint brushes and, some say, his guitar, just like the Basconia nomad poet Iparraguirre. And there where he finds the seed of character he remains for some time. He tries to understand the soul of each place to then submerge himself in it. Most of the time he chooses sunsets and sunrises specially when in Andalucia; and it is not because of a dull sentimentalism but instead because the light is too strong too powerful any other time of the day.”