The online collection and picture sale

View of El Arenal from Fueros dates from the time when he lived in a guesthouse in the Casco Viejo or Old Quarter of Bilbao. In this painting, Maidagan reinforces the drawing by profiling the coloured areas, in the manner of Gauguin, Alberto Arrue and Arteta. This is most evident in the rendering of the buildings. His acceptance of the Impressionist legacy also helps to capture the atmosphere. Horizontal lines predominate, superimposing themselves higher up: balustrades and flower beds, the river, the wharves, the row of buildings, the sky and the heights of Artxanda, broken by the vertical lines of the trees and the diagonals of the El Arenal bridge to the left. A limited range of cold colours and some smooth tonal gradations makes the painting look harmonious ("lyrical", as the artist himself described it), free of sharp contrasts of light, bathed rather by a uniform light. [Gorka Mayor]

Selected bibliography

• Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. p. 124.
• Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. p. 124.
• Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. p. 123, n° cat. 65.