The last third of the 19th century constituted one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of Valencian painting. During this period there emerged and developed a group of important figures that gave a new twist to artistic activity and paved the way for modernity. In this context, the figure of Ignacio Pinazo acquires greater and greater importante the more we examine his work and personality. Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench (1849-1916) is no doubt one of the foremost European painters of his time. However, because of a series of circumstances, it came about that the importance and excellence of his work did not receive until very recently the historiographic attention and difusión it deserved. His painting in many cases needs a certain amount of erudition to be appreciated, but it captivates the spectator who perseveres, and from then on it is seen to be more and more interesting every time it is contemplated. On the other hand, Pinazo was a man with an  introverted and contemplative character, unadventurous and little inclined to travel, whose withdrawal to Godella meant he avoided the international recognition that Sorolla very soon earned.

Pinazo’s extensive and many-sided creation can mislead the historian who approaches it with a linear view of 19th century painting, ignoring the contradictions and heterogeneity of art throughout that century. On occasion, two different artistic profiles of Pinazo have been made; one of them describes him as an author of realistic painting, rather academic and rather willing to conform to the wishes of a clientele with conventional tastes that could feel identified with his historic paintings and portraits; the other portrays him as a modern, avant-garde artist, the author almost sketchy paintings, based on giving priority to free, antiacademic daubs, revealing the real artist, closer and more in keeping with contemporary taste. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that this type of painting is considered more attractive today, we must admit that both aspects are but two sides of the same coin, and one can hardly be dissociated from the other. They both stem from the same root and grow parallel to each other, enriching each other with their experiences, although later the artist himself, because of his character and vital dynamics, felt more identified with that other sketchy style of painting where his ideas about pictorial language came to the fore. The latter trend is the one most represented in the Collection of the IVAM. Pinazo almost always set out from a point of departure, a visual experience, and everyday event or an experience he had witnessed, but for his contemporaries in Valencia, especially those of his own generation, the anecdote can transcend to reach the boundaries of a pure painting that recreates itself in its own substance; he can even hover on the verge of abstraction but he never quite severs the thread that establishes a relationship with the concrete world. His formal and narrative peculiarity complement each other. Pinazo breaks away from the hierarchy of the arts by changing the value of formats and techniques. His painting is a continuum that transports the spectator through a universe filled with sensations that for the artist constitute the path to knowledge. We cannot speak of Pinazo as a split personality, but as an author of integrated realities. An artist who is difficult to classify, for he cultivated all sorts of painting genres and fought to conserve his independence in his refuge in the town of Godella, where his museum is now located. The IVAM is the official institution with the greatest number of works by Pinazo, the most representative master of the first modernity in the visual arts in Valencia.