Ramon Martí Alsina

RAMON MARTÍ ALSINA (Barcelona, 1826–1894).
"Montesión Convent," ca. 1850
Oil on canvas.
Signed.
Dedicated by Ricardo Martí to Bofill.
Inscription on the reverse: “Dedicated to Master Ramon Martí Alsina around the year 1850. Resurrection of a convent in Montesión. Church of the Conception.”
Measurements: 32 x 51 cm; 49.5 x 68 cm (frame).

Martí Alsina depicts a view of the Montesión convent, identified in the inscription on the reverse as “Resurrection of a Convent in Montesión. Church of the Conception.” The composition offers a sweeping panoramic view of the landscape, with the convent buildings set within an open setting of fields, vegetation, and distant mountains. The scene is structured through a succession of planes: in the foreground, a mass of vegetation in shades of green and ochre; in the center, the buildings illuminated by a warm light; and in the background, the bluish line of the mountains beneath a sky of great atmospheric breadth.

Martí Alsina constructs the landscape with a free and vibrant brushstroke, particularly evident in the vegetation in the foreground and in the shifting texture of the sky. The buildings, rendered in light, golden tones, emerge from the fields as a testament to a historical and spiritual memory, reinforced by the inscription on the reverse, which alludes to the restoration or evocation of an ancient convent site. Dated around 1850, the work belongs to an early stage of the artist’s career, at a pivotal moment in the renewal of Catalan landscape painting.

Ramon Martí Alsina was a key figure in 19th-century Catalan realism and one of the great innovators of modern Catalan painting. Trained at the Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona, he championed a style of painting based on observation of nature, compositional solidity, and attention to contemporary reality. He was also a teacher and exerted a decisive influence on subsequent generations. His work is represented in institutions such as the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, and the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer, among other public collections.