Joaquim Mir

JOAQUIM MIR TRINXET (Barcelona, 1873 - 1940).
"Riera al Vallès", ca. 1915-1917.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
It has two tears in the canvas.
Restorations visible on the back.
Attached certificate issued by Francesc Miralles.
Measurements: 65 x 50 cm.

Through a purely pictorial language, Joaquim Mir extracts here the essential cadence of the landscape: the roar of the waterfall, its impetus when crashing against the rocks and modeling them with the course of the centuries. The bold framing and the low point of view emphasize the image of the waterfall and, above it, the fortified line of an ancient building. The green of the forest, the tile colors of the houses and rocks, and the sparkling white of the water, make up a singular chromatic and formal explosion. The painting has been resolved with a palette of autumnal colors and a free and bold brushstroke.

Joaquim Mir studied at the School of Fine Arts of San Jordi in Barcelona and in the workshop of the painter Luis Graner. His style was also influenced by the School of Olot, his father's hometown. He soon felt uncomfortable with the official teaching, anchored in a conception of realist painting, so in 1893 he founded together with other colleagues (Nonell, Canals, Pichot, Vallmitjana and Gual) the "Colla del Safrà", to investigate together in the pictorial initiatives of the end of the century. In 1896 they came to participate as a group in the III Exhibition of Fine Arts and Artistic Industries, to which Mir presented two works that give us a clear idea of the ideals of the group: "La huerta del rector" and "El vendedor de naranjas". Also, since 1897 he frequented the artistic environment of "Els Quatre Gats", where all the artists who knew the European avant-garde met, which helped him to mature in the compositional study of landscapes with figures in different planes of depth. From this period are "Slopes of Montjuic" (1897) and "The Cathedral of the Poor" (1898), the two masterpieces of his youth. In these years he took part in the Fine Arts Exhibitions of Barcelona, in their editions of 1894, 1896 and 1898. Winner of a second medal at the Madrid Exhibition of 1899, that same year he moved to the capital in order to compete for a scholarship in Rome. When he was unsuccessful, he went with Santiago Rusiñol to Mallorca, on a trip that would be a definitive turning point in his career. Mir was dazzled by the Mallorcan landscape, specifically by Sa Calobra, which was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. From then on, the artist deployed a whole combination of impossible colors, the result of his personal interpretation of the majestic nature of the island. The brushstrokes became longer and became stains that almost made objects and spatial references disappear. In 1901 he exhibited the fruit of this first Mallorcan stage individually at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, and again obtained a second medal at the National Exhibition. After a period of illness that forced him to move to Reus, in 1907 he won the first medal at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Barcelona. Since then, settled in Camp de Tarragona, he would not move from the landscape genre, but now the surrounding villages would be the protagonists of his painting. Already consolidated as an outstanding figure of the Catalan panorama, he acquires the definitive national recognition in 1917, when he is awarded the National Prize of Fine Arts. Four years later he married and settled permanently in Vilanova i la Geltrú. His successes followed one after the other, and in 1929 he won the first medal at the International Exhibition in Barcelona. The following year he won the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid, an award he had been pursuing since 1922. Although he was mainly a native painter, he had solo and group exhibitions in Washington, Paris, Pittsburg, New York, Philadelphia, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Venice. Mir is today considered the most outstanding representative of Spanish post-impressionist landscape painting. His work is preserved in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, among many others.