José Masriera

JOSÉ MASRIERA MANOVENS (Barcelona, 1841 - 1912).
"Landscape.
Oil on cardboard.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 22 x 27 cm; 27 x 32 cm (frame).

The one we now bid is the sketch for the 1909 work published in "100 years of painting in Spain and Portugal", pp. 354-355.

José Masriera offers us a spring landscape, starring a lush vegetation of great tonal richness and subtlety in the chromatic treatment. Formally, the scene is structured around a central path that emerges from the very edge of the painting, guiding our gaze towards the forest that occupies the right side. On its sides is the figure of a donkey that carefully observes a young lady who, with her back to the viewer, directs her hands to her head, taking off the scarf that has accompanied her during the long day. The painter rigorously organizes the composition, clearly separating the foreground from the background. Thus, we find in the foreground the road. In its center, the space develops in depth, being closed in the background by the mountains. Painter and silversmith, he began his artistic training in the workshop of his father, Josep Masriera Vidal. He then entered the School of Fine Arts of La Lonja in Barcelona, where he was influenced by the landscape painter Luis Rigalt, to finally complete his studies in Paris. As a painter he dedicated himself to detailed landscapes, usually inspired by the surroundings of San Andrés de Llavaneras, in the province of Barcelona. He participated in exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza, Munich, Berlin and many other cities. His successive trips to Paris brought him into contact with the different tendencies of French landscape painting, and he soon achieved success thanks to the works he presented at the International Exhibition in Paris (third medal) and at the National Fine Arts Exhibitions in Madrid (third medal in 1878 and 1897) and in Barcelona (first medal in 1909). He was an academician of Sciences and Arts (1873) and of the Fine Arts of Sant Jordi, and presided over the Artistic Circle. He published biographies of Catalan artists of the generation before his own, such as Luis Rigalt, Claudio Lorenzale and Francisco Miquel, as well as works on aesthetics such as "Influencia del estilo japonés en las artes europeas" (1885). He is represented in the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña and the Museo del Prado among others, as well as in important international private collections.