MARIANO MONTOYA (Ciudad Real, 1950). "La lectura" (Reading). Oil on canvas adhered to panel. Signed in the lower right corner. Measurements: 50 x 73 cm; 80 x 103,5 cm (frame). A self-taught painter, Mariano Montoya develops a language of refined technique, realistic, smooth and especially brilliant in the colours and in the description. His themes are wide-ranging, from enigmatic orientalist or carnival compositions to his admired seascapes, always captured with a personal sense of colour and light. For Montoya, the preciousness of the realism he cultivates is the essential element that determines the magical and dreamlike atmospheres that define his work. Thus, relying on his solid technique and his imagination, this painter depicts impossible, imaginary, invisible worlds, tales full of beauty. However, his career was interrupted by the death of his brother, from which time Montoya painted only for private individuals and collectors, such as the bullfighter Palomo Linares, and remained aloof from an artistic scene in which he never fully integrated.