Background
Ortega was born in El Escorial, Madrid, Spain, on November 12, 1833.
Calle de Alcalá, 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Martín Rico y Ortega received his formal training at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.
Ortega was born in El Escorial, Madrid, Spain, on November 12, 1833.
Martín Rico y Ortega received his formal training at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. There he studied under the guidance of Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, who was the Academy’s first professor of landscape painting. Ortega’s earliest works were greatly influenced by Romanticism, the style of his teacher.
In 1860 Ortega was awarded a government-sponsored scholarship. He moved to Paris to continue his studies. In France, the artist was fascinated by the artists of the Barbizon school, and Charles-François Daubigny in particular. His landscapes of this period depicted the French and Swiss countryside in a Realist style.
Ortega's first exhibitions were held in 1858 and 1860 at the Exposición Nacional. In Paris the artist turned his attention to developing his own stylistic vocabulary and creating a reputation as a distinctive landscape painter. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1864. During this period, his artworks reflected the plein-air approach of the Barbizon painters and also the Realists’ emphasis on depictions of everyday life. Washerwomen of Varenne (1865) is one of the most vivid examples of his early works.
Ortega continued to display his paintings at the annual Paris Salon, and later, at the Salon des Artistes Français, although during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he decided to leave France and return to his native Spain.
In 1873 Martín Rico y Ortega travelled to Italy, visiting Florence, Rome, Naples, and finally Venice. It captured Rico’s artistic imagination and led to the perfection of his artistic style as well as the creation of many of his most iconic works. For the next thirty-six years, he spent every summer painting in Venice.
Ortega became good friends with the Peruvian painter Federico del Campo. The two artists worked sometimes together depicting the Venetian scenes that were popular with the increasing number of travelers to that city. In the relative political calm of the late 1870s and 1880s, Martín Rico y Ortega often visited Spain, exploring the landscapes of what had once been Moorish areas in particular.
During his later years, he also served as the artistic director of the international journal Ilustración Española y Americana, founded by Abelardo Charles in 1869. It presented a wide range of prints and drawings, making a crucial contribution to the growing global market for art and design magazines.
In 1878 he returned to Paris for a short period of time, to exhibit his seventeen new works at the Exposition Universelle. Then the artist spent the last years of his life in Venice.
Lavanderas de La Varenne, Francia
Puerta de una casa en Toledo
La Riva degli Schiavoni en Venecia
A view of Venice
Fisherman
The Grand Canal, Venice
Rio de San Barnaba, Venice
Patio andaluz
Venetian Scene with Santa Maria Della Salute in the Distance
Country Canal View
El declarante
Il Redentore, Venice
At the edge of the water
Lady in an interior with a cockatoo
Untitled
Las Palomas de San Marcos
Vista urbana, Venecia
Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana, Venice
A Venetian canal
Paisaje granadino
The Molo and Bacino di San Marco, Venice
A View in Venice
Bathers on the Italian Coast
A Venetian canal
Afternoon Along the Seine, Near Poissy
A Seaside Villa
A Venetian canal
Rio Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice
Venetian canal
San Giorgio Maggiore from the Giudecca