How does an image do? It is not easy to explain why Winthuysen's self images only began to appear in his mature phase. We can only begin to understand Winthuysen personally if we allow to be true the saying I just made up to be true: "the expression of your face is the portrait of your soul."
When Javier de Winthuysen y Losada (1874-1956) came to train for his painter_artist profession he followed what was left of the classic painting trend, from the XVII century, still practiced by Sevillian artists' teachers. Winthuysen began his practical art training at the age of 18, in the city of Seville, Spain where the degeneration of the art of painting had successfully dragged down the principles of great artists painters like Sebastian Murillo, and Diego de Velazquez. In these unfavorable surroundings his reaction towards education implanted principles was to listen to his teachers' lectures and do exactly the opposite. Early in his youth, Winthuysen followed classical principles in his paintings product of his practical visual experience in museums and private collections in Seville. Although, he was a fervent admired of the fluid brush work present in Velazquez, Murillo, El Greco, and Francisco de Lucientes y Goya he started early in life to train his mind and hand coordination to copy "nature" like a sort of a practical photograph. This artistic development was not satisfactory to him do to technical art contradictions reminiscent of social and political local circumstances beyond his own understanding. This sort of internal revolution--he suffered for many years--took him to appreciate certain components of classic painting and reject many others. For all those hard to explain reasons his self images creations only began to appear in his maturity. One may conclude that Winthuysen was a Modernist artist with practical classical reservations. For this reason, he was not able to leave us any self image produced early in his career. Never the less, we have a curious example of a Sevillian landscape which is witness to the meticulous brush work in consonance with the preferred technique of his time.[www.teresawinthuysen.net]
Winthuysen' self images along with the portraits created by his friends began to appear in the 1900's. For reasons of style his self portrait submitted to a collective portrait exhibit in Barcelona did not have an assertive critical review at the time. Mostly because the long beard covered face did not allow the critics to substantiate the intention of the artist. This self created image was in profound contrast to the frontal image in the pastel portrait done by Winthuysen' friend Antonio Lozano. One concludes that these frontal portraits represent tremendous configuration differences. In this early self-portrait, Winthuysen presents himself to the public as a modern painter consonant with a self artistic knowledge of how an artist should look; while Lozano creates a portrait of a distinguished young gentleman with a properly trimmed beard and a neck tie style which was fashionable in the late XVIII century. Other Winthuysen' portraits done by his artists friends appear almost simultaneously; one is a terracotta bust by the sculptor Jacinto Higueras. This is a realistic portrait with open facial expression, without a beard; concentrated in some hidden idea Winthuysen looks was, must provably be, younger than he was. The frontward view of Winthuysen' head by Vazquez Diaz along with the one done by the sculptor Victorio Macho and Enrique Perez-Comendador-not available in the samples-are official images of an active participant in the Generation of 1898; we experience these official images as justified historical Winthuysen' reflections concomitant to Madrid' intellectual life of the time.
The disparity between the official images and what the painter thought of himself in the self-portraits produced after 1900 reflects a meaning worth exploration time investment. On a logical line of thought, the first thing to question is the fact of Antonio Lozano's view of Winthuysen as a late member of a naval career family individuals which ended in Javier Winthuysen. Perhaps Winthuysen and Lozano decided to disguise the model using past social function vestry not longer of use for the artistic life as Winthuysen knew.
No doubt, the portraits by El Greco were one of the greatest inspirations during the the important period of 1910 to 1920 to Winthuysen. During this time, he lived-on and off-in Paris until the advent of the First World War, in 1917, when he moved to Madrid. The still life of a silver washbasin and jug contains the reflected self-image of the artist on the silvery surface and the mirror Barroque framed background; the image was a product of internalized philosophical and painterly values away from the Spanish hard profiled painting tradition. In it, Winthuysen' reflection is engaged on the act of painting; palette and brushes are witness to the painter' actions. It tells how the artist while looking at superfluous luxury items from past generations happened to stumble on his own reflection. It was in study copies of El Greco' portraits where Winthuysen finally discovered how to use the subtle superpositions of color veils which allowed the light to cross and define the figure to the eye of the beholder. The engraved dedication on the portrait to his Parisian friends is a recognition of need to exert a profession to keep body and soul together after losing the rest of his fortune. Therefore, the hard-lined dream attitude on the portrait done by Pino Sarda, in 1933, does not come as a surprise; or the architects were about to hang over some profession to a self dedicated artist who was about to starve to death.
