(b Valencia, 11 Feb 1849; d Godella, nr Valencia, 12 Oct 1916). Spanish painter. He came from a poor family and in his youth worked as a silversmith, gilder, tile painter and hatter. This experience encouraged an independent spirit unencumbered by academic doctrine. He did, however, attend the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Valencia while working as a hatter, studying colour and composition, life drawing and drawing from the Antique (1868–9). In 1870 he started to devote himself wholly to painting. His early works include several portraits (e.g. Doria Teresa Martínez, 1871; Valencia, Mus. B.A.). A series of stays in Italy were important for Pinazo’s development. The first of these took place in 1873, when he spent seven months visiting Rome, Naples and Venice and became familiar with the work of Mariano José Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal, whose influence can be seen in Pinazo’s small-scale landscapes on panel (e.g. Venice Lagoon, 1873–5; priv. col., see Aguilera Cerni, pl. 10). Soon, however, his work came to resemble that of the impressionistic Italian painters, the Macchiaioli, as in Pinazo’s brightly coloured Wheat-field (c. 1880; Valencia, Casa–Mus. Mondella). His second stay in Italy began in 1877 with an award for his large history painting, Landing of Francis I of France in Valencia (1876; Valencia, Diputación Prov.), a work showing the influence of Spanish 17th-century realism, particularly that of Diego Velázquez, although Francisco Domingo y Marqués also influenced Pinazo’s technique. In the earlier part of his career he had no choice but to bow to the official academic criteria whose clearest public manifestation was in the Exposiciones Nacionales de Bellas Artes. He produced a series of history paintings for such events and thus acquired a wealthy patron in the state itself.

• Pinazo (Camarlench), Ignacio
  • Pintura de la luz
  • Valencia, §2: Art life and organization