Eliseo Meifrèn

ELISEO MEIFRÈN ROIG (Barcelona, 1859 - 1940).
"The garden of my house".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner. Titled on the back.
Measurements: 80 x 85 cm; 100 x 105 cm (frame).

The gardens occupy a chapter apart in Meifrèn's painting, bequeathing us important oil paintings of the gardens of Aranjuez, but also patios and gardens of his different residences, especially in Majorca, as well as those of his friends. He developed fruitful variations on the theme, reaching the peak of his art in some of them, as is the case of the family garden corner we are dealing with here. Meifrèn offers us a work exuberant with light and color, with an impressionistic treatment of the extensive garden of almost palatial appearance, of which we only see a fragment. The bower welcomes the vines and fruit canopies whose branches play with the earthen ground, tracing moving shadows. The hedges, resolved with quick but precise and impastoed brushstrokes, giving texture and depth, are aligned in emerald and lime green tones, scattering across the terrain. In the background, we glimpse a mansion and a fountain, or perhaps a hermitage, camouflaged among the vegetation. The whole evokes a Mediterranean landscape, sunny and welcoming. The title evokes a sensation of an intimate and familiar space, a refuge of which the painting leaves testimony, inviting us to a slow contemplation.

A painter of landscapes and seascapes, Eliseo Meifrèn is considered one of the first introducers of the impressionist movement in Catalonia. He began his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he was a disciple of Antonio Caba and Ramón Martí Alsina, with whom he began to create romantic landscapes of academic style. After finishing his studies, in 1878, he moved to Paris in order to broaden his artistic knowledge, and there he got to know first hand the painting "à plen air", which would influence him powerfully in his Parisian landscapes of those years. Likewise, in Paris he coincided with the public beginning of impressionism. A year later he made a trip to Italy, during which he visited Naples, Florence, Venice and Rome; there he made contact with the circle of Catalan artists formed by Ramón Tusquets, Arcadio Mas i Fondevila, Enrique Serra, Antonio Fabrés and Joan Llimona, among others. That same year, 1879, he participated in the Regional Exhibition of Valencia, and won a gold medal. Once back in Barcelona, in 1880 he made his individual debut in the Sala Parés in Barcelona, where he continued to exhibit regularly since then. During these years he was part of the modernist group, and frequented Els Quatre Gats. In 1883 he returned to Paris, where he made numerous drawings and watercolors with views of the city and its cafés, which earned him a warm welcome from French critics and the French public. At the end of the eighties he returned to Barcelona and continued to show his work at the Sala Parés, as well as at the Centro de Acuarelistas. Also, in 1888 he was a member of the jury of the Universal Exhibition held in Barcelona. In 1890 he returned for the third time to the French capital, where he participated in the Salon des Beaux-Arts and in the Salon des Indépendants of 1892, together with Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol, artists with whom he had formed the Sitges pictorial group a year earlier. In the following years Meifrèn would send his works to numerous official exhibitions and competitions, among them the National Exhibitions of Madrid and Barcelona, and was awarded the third medal at the Paris Universal of 1889 and 1899, silver medal at the Brussels Universal of 1910, grand prize at the Buenos Aires Universal of the same year, medal of honor at the San Francisco International of 1915 and grand prize at the San Diego International of the following year. He also won the Nonell Prize of Barcelona in 1935. In 1952, the Barcelona City Council dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, held at the Palacio de la Virreina. He is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the MACBA in Barcelona and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, among many others.