Santiago Rusiñol

SANTIAGO RUSIÑOL I PRATS (Barcelona, 1861 – Aranjuez, Madrid, 1931).
“The Cathedral from the Passeig de la Murada,” 1893.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Work published in the catalog raisonné: Josep de C. Laplana and Mercedes Palau-Ribes O’Callaghan, The Paintings of Santiago Rusiñol: Complete Works, vol. III, Edicions Mediterrània, Barcelona, 2004.
Measurements: 54.5 x 73 cm; 79 x 96 cm (frame).

Dated 1893, this work belongs to Santiago Rusiñol’s first and brief stay in Mallorca, which took place during the spring of that year. This was a particularly significant moment in his career: the artist was then discovering the pictorial possibilities of the island’s light, whose vibrancy became one of the central elements of his early Mallorcan impressions, several years before the great landscape cycle he would develop on the island beginning in 1901.

Here, Rusiñol avoids a monumental, frontal view of Palma’s cathedral. He shifts it to the upper edge of the composition and gives prominence to the path, the walls, and the sky, creating an open and markedly asymmetrical perspective. The absence of figures reinforces the sense of space and allows the architecture to blend into an atmosphere created by veiled ochres, pinks, and blues. The light brushwork and the simplification of the volumes transform the urban view into a study of light and distance, rather than a strictly topographical representation.

The painting is therefore of particular interest within Rusiñol’s body of work: it documents the origins of his long-standing artistic relationship with Mallorca and is part of a series created over a span of just two months, predating the gardens and Symbolist landscapes that would cement his fame. It also coincides with a decisive year for the artist, 1893, when he established Cau Ferrat in Sitges, which would become a leading center of Catalan Modernism.

A painter, writer, playwright, and collector, Santiago Rusiñol was one of the central figures of Catalan Modernism. His stays in Paris, his work in Sitges, and his travels throughout Spain shaped a body of work in which landscape played a fundamental role. His works are represented, among other institutions, at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and the Museu del Cau Ferrat, his former home and studio.