Emilio Sala Francés

EMILIO SALA FRANCÉS (Alcoy, Alicante, 1850 - Madrid, 1910).
"The gardens of the Palace of La Granja".
Oil on cardboard.
It has damage in the frame.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 36 x 52 cm; 45 x 61 cm (frame).
The landscape occupies a significant place in the production of Emilio Sala, not so much for its frequency as for its capacity to translate the visual modernity of his time. In his views, Sala knew how to combine the academic solidity of his training with a luminous and chromatic sensibility that anticipates fin-de-siecle concerns: the atmosphere, the dynamism of contemporary life and the study of light as a structuring element of space.
Trained at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia under the tutelage of Plácido Francés, Sala completed his apprenticeship in Madrid, copying the masters of the Prado, especially Velázquez. His early projection was confirmed by the first medals obtained in the National Exhibitions of 1878 and 1881. He was granted a scholarship in Rome in 1885, where he broadened his aesthetic horizon in contact with the Renaissance and with figures such as Sorolla, and later in Paris, where he participated in the Universal Exposition of 1889 and obtained international recognition, culminating with the Gold Medal in Berlin in 1891.
From 1890 he moved away from history painting to devote himself to genre, landscape and illustration, collaborating in prominent publications. Settled permanently in Madrid, he was appointed professor of Theory and Aesthetics of Color at the School of San Fernando, where his teaching, embodied in The Grammar of Color, influenced artists such as Maria Blanchard. Academic and decorated in several European institutions, Emilio Sala consolidated a career of wide recognition, today represented in national and international museums, which places him as a key figure in the transition from academicism to a more modern sensibility in Spanish painting.