Joaquim Mir

JOAQUIM MIR TRINXET (Barcelona, 1873 - 1940).
"Market of Vilanova".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 93 x 74 cm; 113 x 94 cm (frame).

Under the whitewashed porch of a Romanesque architecture a lively market scene unfolds. The burst of vibrant colors contrasts with the whiteness of the arches that welcome the human group. In the foreground, large wicker baskets of potatoes and lettuce are lined up next to the greengrocers and the children who help them fill their shopping bags. However, we sense more than what we see, since the great protagonist here is the joint agitation, the spontaneous vitality of the sum of gestures, printed dresses, products of the earth and silhouettes that, towards the background, become pure chromatic symphony. "I only want my works to gladden the heart and flood the eyes and soul with light". This is how Mir summed up his manifesto as a painter. Color and light meant everything to the Barcelona painter, and with them he constructed a personal language with which he created a surprisingly modern work. This is evident in our painting in a privileged way.

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. The name came from the saffron and ochre tones they used in their paintings, with which they tried to capture the Mediterranean luminosity and reject the coldness of the greys and blues of the French impressionists. Nevertheless, they imitated the Impressionists in their taste for painting outdoors, capturing there the environments and types they saw. In 1896 they even participated 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, installed in Camp de Tarragona, he will not move from the landscape genre, but now the surrounding villages will be the protagonists of his painting. He will paint houses, churches, orchards, people, flowering almond trees, farmyards... Intranscendent themes that are more and more adjusted to the reality of nature, since they only wanted to reflect his love for his land and his constant search for changes in light. His style will no longer be as expressive as that of Mallorca, although the bold use of color and stain remains. Already consolidated as an outstanding figure of the Catalan scene, he acquired definitive national recognition in 1917, when he was 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.