Carlos Nadal

CARLOS NADAL (Paris, 1917 – Sitges, 1998).
"Rural View of France," 1970.
Oil on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 50 x 80 cm; 70 x 99 cm (frame).

This rural landscape belongs to a period of full artistic maturity for Carlos Nadal and brings together some of the most recognizable features of his personal Fauvist style: chromatic intensity, loose brushwork, and a conception of the landscape subordinated to the pictorial experience rather than topographical accuracy. A stately building emerges from lush vegetation, while the wall and path in the foreground draw the eye toward the center of the composition.

The architecture is rendered through simplified planes of greens, yellows, and oranges, surrounded by vegetation rendered with quick, sinuous brushstrokes. The reddish tree trunks, emerald greens, and the blue of the sky create a particularly intense chromatic rhythm, while the distortions of perspective and the movement of the lines lend the scene a marked vitality. A small figure introduces a human scale without detracting from the landscape’s prominence.

The date 1970 still corresponds to the years Nadal lived in Brussels, where he remained until the mid-1970s. France and Belgium were pivotal to the consolidation of his artistic language: the artist’s official biography notes that it was precisely in these countries that his Fauvist sensibility crystallized and where he discovered a range of chromatic nuances that he considered distinct from Mediterranean light. That same year he painted *Argenteuil*, a testament to the importance that the French landscape held at this point in his career.

Carlos Nadal studied at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and later completed his training in Paris. Beginning in 1948, he lived in Brussels, developing an extensive international career with exhibitions in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. With strong Fauvist and Post-Impressionist influences, he made color the primary structural element of his landscapes, interiors, and urban scenes. He was invited to exhibit at the Royal Academy in London and maintained an intense exhibition schedule both in Spain and on the European art circuit.