Ricard Martí Aguiló

RICARD MARTÍ AGUILÓ (Barcelona, 1868–1936).
Set of three landscapes: “Boats at Cadaqués,” “Landscape,” and “Beach and Rock,” one of which is dated 1909.
Oil on panel.
The first is signed “R.M.” The second is signed and inscribed in the lower left corner.
They show minor signs of wear consistent with their age.

The set comprises three small landscapes that reveal Ricard Martí Aguiló’s most direct and spontaneous style, closely tied to the observation of nature. The three panels are executed with loose, highly visible brushstrokes that prioritize the capture of light, atmosphere, and texture over a meticulous depiction of the subject.

In *Barques a Cadaqués*, the boats and harbor structures are rendered through a rich combination of blues, greens, pinks, and earth tones, applied with remarkable freedom. The second landscape presents a luminous Mediterranean vision, dominated by pine forests and a sky filled with large clouds, while *Platja i roca* focuses attention on the materiality of the coastline, rendering the rock formations through impasto and rapid chromatic variations. The small format and the immediacy of the execution lend the three works the character of sketches made in front of the subject.

Ricardo Martí Aguiló was a Catalan painter associated with the Barcelona artistic tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The son of the celebrated Ramón Martí Alsina, one of the key figures of Catalan Realism, he grew up in a family environment closely tied to painting, a circumstance that had a decisive influence on his artistic training. His work is characterized by a focus on drawing, an interest in naturalistic representation, and a marked decorative sensibility, developed within a context of aesthetic renewal in which the final manifestations of academicism coexisted with Modernism. His pictorial language combines the 19th-century realist tradition with greater freedom in the treatment of color and composition, reflecting the artistic tastes of Catalan society at the turn of the century.