DOI issue:
Nr. 126 (August 1907)
DOI article:Pica, Vittorio: A painter of gardens: Santiago Rusiñol
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28252#0116
A Painter of Gardens: Santiago Rusinol
Spanish life, with all its violent and ardent passions.
He it was who revived the artistic traditions of the
Spanish school, so long dormant after the death of
Goya. Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida represents the
conscientious study of humble life and the dazzling
effects of light on sunny shores. Herman Anglada
is the painter of popular Spanish and Parisian
scenes, instinct with life and animation. Santiago
Rusinol, on the other hand, appeals to us as a
painter full of poetical and suggestive inspiration.
Tnis will seem but natural when we realise that
Rusinol handles the pen not less skilfully than the
brush, and that his sketches, his short stories, and
especially his dramas and comedies, written in rich,
picturesque Catalonian, have earned for him a
most honourable place in modem Spanish literature.
Santiago Rusinol was born at Barcelona in 1861;
he was not at all a precocious genius, and his art
was self-taught. At the age of twenty-five he ex-
hibited his first pictures—typical scenes of the
industrial life of Barcelona. For some time he
hesitated between figure and landscape painting,
producing works of merit but of no particular
originality, yet within himself he felt that he had
not yet realised on canvas the artistic expression
of his conceptions. He then undertook long
journeys, not only in his own beloved land, so
varied and picturesque, but also through Italy,
France, and Holland, staying for a considerable
time in Paris. During his wanderings, as he has
himself told us in his volume of impressions,
“ Impresiones de Arte ”—which is so beautifully
and copiously illustrated with varied and exquisite
sketches by himself and his friends Zuloaga and
Utrillo—he ling red with delight to feast his eyes
and his imagination on all he saw, not only on the
spectacle of nature but on the marbles, bronzes,
paintings, and etchings collected in museums,
galleries, and periodical exhibitions of art.
With unceasing pertinacity he toiled for years,
ever seeking for new sensations and emotions, and
endeavouring through them to find his own aspira-
tions, until one day he realised his inspiration in
an old garden of Grenada, and then was his genius
suddenly revealed to him by the spectacle of
gnarled and knotted trees gilt by the ardour of an
“ UNB. RETRAITE TRANQUILLE ”
BY SANTIAGO RUSINOL
Spanish life, with all its violent and ardent passions.
He it was who revived the artistic traditions of the
Spanish school, so long dormant after the death of
Goya. Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida represents the
conscientious study of humble life and the dazzling
effects of light on sunny shores. Herman Anglada
is the painter of popular Spanish and Parisian
scenes, instinct with life and animation. Santiago
Rusinol, on the other hand, appeals to us as a
painter full of poetical and suggestive inspiration.
Tnis will seem but natural when we realise that
Rusinol handles the pen not less skilfully than the
brush, and that his sketches, his short stories, and
especially his dramas and comedies, written in rich,
picturesque Catalonian, have earned for him a
most honourable place in modem Spanish literature.
Santiago Rusinol was born at Barcelona in 1861;
he was not at all a precocious genius, and his art
was self-taught. At the age of twenty-five he ex-
hibited his first pictures—typical scenes of the
industrial life of Barcelona. For some time he
hesitated between figure and landscape painting,
producing works of merit but of no particular
originality, yet within himself he felt that he had
not yet realised on canvas the artistic expression
of his conceptions. He then undertook long
journeys, not only in his own beloved land, so
varied and picturesque, but also through Italy,
France, and Holland, staying for a considerable
time in Paris. During his wanderings, as he has
himself told us in his volume of impressions,
“ Impresiones de Arte ”—which is so beautifully
and copiously illustrated with varied and exquisite
sketches by himself and his friends Zuloaga and
Utrillo—he ling red with delight to feast his eyes
and his imagination on all he saw, not only on the
spectacle of nature but on the marbles, bronzes,
paintings, and etchings collected in museums,
galleries, and periodical exhibitions of art.
With unceasing pertinacity he toiled for years,
ever seeking for new sensations and emotions, and
endeavouring through them to find his own aspira-
tions, until one day he realised his inspiration in
an old garden of Grenada, and then was his genius
suddenly revealed to him by the spectacle of
gnarled and knotted trees gilt by the ardour of an
“ UNB. RETRAITE TRANQUILLE ”
BY SANTIAGO RUSINOL