These paintings by Madrid-born Manuel Ramos Artal date from around the turn of the century. They comprise two landscapes of little significance. Their quality is not outstanding. They are typical of the trend in landscape art in Spain that emerged in the wake of Carlos de Haes, under whom Ramos Artal studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Ramos Artal frequently painted scenes from Galicia and Asturias, such as Landscape in Asturias (also documented under the name Landscape with Granary), plus scenes from Madrid, from the banks of the Seine and from other points in Europe that he had visited on his travels through the Low Countries, Italy and Portugal. The first of the works in the Banco de España Collection shows a turreted farmstead with a raised granary set in the wet, misty landscape typical of Spain's north coast. The second is a wintry scene of a thicket beside a stream. The first painting is more elaborate and richer in colour than the second.  As such it stands out from the almost monochrome Landscape with Stream. However, in the latter the artist has clearly made a great effort to create a cold, bleak atmosphere.

Ramos Artal has gone down in the annals as a second-rate painter who tended to stick to standard themes and repeat the same layouts, but his work is certainly representative of the emerging genre of landscape art, of its fondness for small-format, plein air scenes and, above all, of the weighty influence of Carlos de Haes over dozens of artists in the generation that came after him. Ramos Artal enjoyed some degree of popularity during his lifetime, at least in Madrid. This is evidenced by the fact that a caricature of him was featured on the cover of the magazine Madrid Cómico accompanied by a satirical rhyme about his work, poking fun at its almost serial repetitions, that translates as follows: 'Here there is one Ramos Artal / though it is worth at least two. / He copies well from nature, / and is an artist, by God! / of exceptional merit'.

• Julián Gállego Serrano
• María José Alonso
• Carlos Martín