Joaquim Vayreda

JOAQUIM VAYREDA VILA (Girona, 1843 - Olot, Girona, 1894).
"Landscape with figure.
Oil on canvas glued to board.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 20 x 23 cm; 31 x 36 cm (frame).

In this lake landscape, Joaquim Vayreda presents a twilight scene of serene and poetic atmosphere, characteristic of the School of Olot. The landscape is organized around a sheet of water that reflects the warm tones of the sky at sunset. The presence of a human figure, small and almost secondary, introduces a narrative note and accentuates the sensation of scale and silence. The brushstroke is restrained and vibrant, attentive to the effects of light and the harmonious integration between nature and figure, reflecting Vayreda's own lyricism and landscape sensibility.

Joaquim Vayreda was one of the most outstanding Catalan landscape painters of the 19th century. After his early studies in his hometown, he furthered his training in Barcelona with Martí Alsina and made stays in Paris. He founded the Artistic Center of Olot, the nucleus of the so-called Olot School of painting, and in 1869 he founded the Artistic-Cultural Center in Olot, which would become a focus of renovation in the face of official academicism. The outbreak of the Carlist War led him to go into exile in France in 1872, where he remained for three years. On his return he resumed the activities of the Artistic Center, and Olot became a center of attraction for painters attracted by the paintings that Vayreda exhibited in the Parés room. Works by Joaquín Vayreda are kept in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Víctor Balaguer Museum in Barcelona, the Art Museum of Girona and the Abbey of Montserrat.