Joaquín Vayreda

JOAQUÍN VAYREDA VILA (Girona, 1843 - Olot, Girona, 1894).
"Landscape with cows", ca. 1877.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Stamp of the canvas manufacturer: J. Mauri, Barcelona. Escudillers Street, 30.
Certificate label made by Mr. Marçal Barrachina with reference D/C 2010/DLMG.
Measurements: 56 x 91 cm; 72 x 107 cm (frame).

The presented canvas reflects the characteristic style of Vayreda, based on the agile and sketched brushstroke and the predominantly neutral and dark chromatism. It shows a peaceful landscape, influenced by the landscape painting of Ramón Martí Alsina. Within Vayredi's production, the work we present here is an example of the naturalism that the Olot-born artist adopted in his medium-format works during the years of definitive formation of his style.

Founder of the landscape school of Olot, at the age of nine he began his studies under the guidance of Narcís Pascual, then director of the Olot School of Drawing. He moved to Barcelona around 1860 to study philosophy, and there he continued his artistic training in the workshop of Ramón Martí Alsina. In 1865 he exhibited for the first time in the premises of the Society of Artists of Barcelona, and the following year he participated in an exhibition in the Sala Parés. In 1869 he founds in Olot the Artistic-Cultural Center, which will become a focus of renovation and experimentation against the official academicism. In 1871 he travels for the first time to Paris, and comes into contact with the Barbizon school, as well as with the first impressionists. The outbreak of the Carlist War led him to go into exile in France in 1872, where he remained for three years. On his return he resumed the activities of the Artistic Center, and Olot became a center of attraction for Catalan painters, attracted by the paintings that Vayreda exhibited in the Parés room. Works by Joaquín Vayreda are kept in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Víctor Balaguer Museum in Barcelona, the Art Museum of Girona and the Abbey of Montserrat.