Sebastián Junyent

SEBASTIÁN JUNYENT SANS (Barcelona, 1865 - 1915).
"The musician.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dedicated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 66 x 48 cm; 78 x 60,5 cm (frame).

An old man with a long gray beard carries his guitar and advances through an urban square that at that moment is crossed by a couple of passers-by. However, the painter leaves them in the background, reducing them to quick sketches in order to focus our attention on the endearing musician with a cane. He achieves a truthful and spontaneous characterization, using only a few details.
Sebastián Junyent was trained at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona, specializing in genre and landscape painting, also cultivating the tapestry technique mainly during his early years. A great friend of Pablo Picasso, with whom he shared his artistic interests, around 1900 he published several articles on aesthetic themes in the magazine "Joventut", one of the main magazines of the modernist movement in Catalonia. Throughout his career he held several individual exhibitions and participated in artistic contests and competitions such as the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1899, where he exhibited his canvas "Ex voto", or the Barcelona Exhibitions of 1894, 1896 and 1898, among others. Among his works it is worth mentioning the following, all of them presented in official exhibitions: "Un pregón en un pueblo del Montseny" (1894), "Matinada" (1896), "Una vegada era un rei" (1898), "Prometença", "Clorosi", "Mater dolorosa" (1904), "Cazador", "Bosquet de Vallvidrera" (1904), "Cabeza de estudio" and "Anunciación" (1901), among others.