In 1930, this canvas was acquired by the Prado, transferred from the Museo de Arte Moderno (now the Museo Reina Sofia; formally ingested in 1971), and is one of the prime examples of 19th-century Spanish-Italian cultural exchange.
‘Procession in the Abbey at Tiglieto’ (Procesión en la abadía de Tiglieto) is a masterpiece created in the 19th-century Spanish and Italian landscape verismo movement by the Galician painter and landscape artist Serafín Avendaño Martínez (1837-1916). The painting shows a typical outdoor religious event in the countryside of Liguria, where Avendaño spent many years, after travelling to Italy in 1861 with a travel grant, living and working in the historic Cistercian abbey of Tiglieto (Badia di Tiglieto).
The bottom half of the painting is filled with sunny green meadows, creating a sense of horizontal composition. In the middle ground, a group of people dressed in traditional clothes and carrying lanterns are crossing the grassy landscape in front of the abbey complex, with the abbey building clearly visible in the background. Outside of that, there are the kneeling faithful, where in the foreground, numerous peasant figures, women with the traditional headscarf and men with rural clothes, are seen reverently kneeling on the grass as the procession moves by, thus capturing an authentic moment of rural Italian devotion.
Moreover, the medieval abbey’s distinctive brick-and-stone facade stands prominently in the foreground, with a tall, thin bell tower rising up through the rolling green hills, reaching out to the soft light filtering through the clear blue sky, casting a vast expanse of blue above. Avendaño spent thirty years in Genoa and the surrounding region. He was a prominent member of the influential group of Italian landscape painters known as the Scuola di Rivara, who encouraged a style of painting in the open air of nature (en plein air).
In Procession in the Abbey at Tiglieto, Avendaño throws away the dark, wet palette of early-19th-century academic landscape painting for a brighter, more high-keyed style. His exactitude of brushwork conveys the moody wetness and glowing sunshine of the northern Italian river valleys.
The composition is arranged horizontally, allowing the broad meadow, the abbey, and the surrounding wooded hills to dominate the scene. The religious procession moves quietly across the landscape, while local peasants kneel in reverence, emphasizing the integration of faith into everyday rural life. Rather than dramatizing the event, Avendano presents it as a peaceful communal ritual that unfolds naturally within the environment. The painting exemplifies the Verist (Verismo) tendencies of the late nineteenth century by portraying ordinary people and everyday religious customs with sincerity and careful attention to detail. Instead of idealizing the landscape, Avendano records the architecture, vegetation, and figures with precision, creating a convincing sense of place. The work highlights the close relationship between nature, local tradition, and spirituality, making the landscape itself an active participant in the religious experience.
