Barrio Escalante, San José

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Jinete con Caballo Blanco, by Johnny Villares. At barely nineteen centimeters in height, this picture concentrates a fabulous sense of monumentality.

Johnny Villares

Jinete con Caballo Blanco

Year
1982
Technique
Oil/Canvas
Dimensions
19 × 14,5 cm
Status
Available
Palette
cerulean blue, ivory white, forest green, raspberry pink, brown earth
Brushwork
Smooth brushstroke with fine, linear lines, showing graphic meticulousness in ornamental details on a flat surface.

Curatorial analysis

At barely nineteen centimeters in height, this picture concentrates a fabulous sense of monumentality. A white steed of synthetic anatomy and arched neck rears up on its hind legs, suspended in an almost heraldic weightlessness. Riding bareback upon it, a child-like figure in a polka-dot fuchsia dress clings to the strands of its mane, rendered in fine white filaments drawn with millimetric precision. The scale of the horse in relation to the surrounding elements commands the space, establishing an upward axis that defies the modest physical dimensions of the canvas.

The ground plane is constructed with a rigorous, botanically stylized order. At the base, sharp leaves and dense green foliage shelter two tiny pink birds on the right, while a small black dog runs barking on the left along an earthen path. Slender, rhythmic stems capped with pink blossoms form a visual fence before the landscape opens into the background, creating a serene middle ground that counters the animal's dynamic impulse.

Above, the sky expands into a cerulean blue that gradates toward daylight, dotted with wispy clouds that softly contradict the presence of a carmine crescent moon at the zenith. This coexistence of day and night does not seek bewilderment, but rather installs an atmosphere akin to a fable or lyrical reverie, where the logic of astronomical time is quietly suspended.

The surface reveals a goldsmith-like patience: delicate shading barely sculpts the horse's volume, granting it the flat, pure presence of naïve painting, while sharp contours isolate each form with pristine clarity. The scene does not capture an ordinary equestrian event, but rather the magical moment when childhood mounts wonder without reins or fear, in full communion with a nature tamed by fantasy.

Jinete con Caballo Blanco

More works by Johnny Villares

6 works

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