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I posted a teaser question about this mystery painter way back in March. I really didn’t imagine that it would be quite so long before you’d see the answer to my question: The painter was Santiago Rusiñol i Prats, to give him his full title.

I’ve unearthed so much material about Rusiñol, that I’m going to split his story into a few parts so as to avoid creating one humungous and indigestible post that people will just want to skim over when they see the size of the scrollbar on the right.

Anyway, here’s the original teaser picture again, please click the thumbnails to enlarge.:

The scene shows a beautiful terraced garden in a valley in Majorca, just as the almond trees begin to blossom in Spring. Rusiñol painted this view in 1904 and returned in 1911 to paint the same view from a little higher up the hill.

We’ll come back to Rusiñol’s love of landscape (and particularly to his relationship with flowers and gardens) later.

Allow me to first show you the Rusiñol picture that originally stopped me dead in my tracks for long enough to wonder “Who the heck painted that!!!

This evening light view was painted in Sóller on the north coast of Mallorca (=Majorca) in 1905

I was knocked sideways by the bold and luminous colour scheme that combined so well with the temperature contrasts between foreground and background. The picture is bursting with contrasts; of tone, temperature, texture and saturation.

Rusiñol and his contemporaries effectively brought modernism to Catalonia at the turn of the 19th Century. Needless to say, they picked up the modernism bug in Paris.

But first, a little geography 101 for those who are unfamiliar with the smaller European states and provinces. Click the map to orient yourself in Rusiñol’s world.

The Balearic Islands, Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, do not strictly belong to the autonomous community of Catalonia (=Catalunya), but there are a lot of similarities in dialect and outlook.

I hope that gives a clear picture of where he came from, but what is more significant from our point of view is the times that he lived in.

Here are his dates: Born in Barcelona, Spain, on the 25th of Feb 1861, and died in Aranjuez, Castile, Spain on the 13th of July 1931. He is still fondly remembered and respected in his land, not just as an innovative painter, but also as a writer and playwright. He was a true polymath.

Born into a well to do bourgeois family, he was orphaned when quite young and was raised by his grandparents.

He trained alongside his grandfather in the successful family textile business. At the age of 20 he set off with his close friend, the painter Ramon Casas, on a prolonged journey through the picturesque countryside of Catalonia on foot and by horse drawn wagon, writing up their experiences in a book.

Here’s a picture of Ramon Casas by Rusiñol -

And here’s Rusiñol painted by Casas -

The distant call of Paris, centre of all that was exciting in the art universe at that time, became irresistible to Rusiñol and Casas, so in the early 1890s they decided to get away from the provincial scene in Catalonia and strike out with Miguel Utrillo for where the action was.

Just for fun, here’s the little landscape behind Rusiñol in the picture above: -

The trio spent a huge amount of time at a pleasure palace called “Moulin de la Galette”, which was a sort of fairground, dance hall, and cabaret all rolled into one. It was situated in the up and coming suburb of Montmartre, where the astonishing cathedral of Sacré Cœur was under construction at the time. (If my shaky grasp of Spanish serves me, I believe that the three painters actually lived within the grounds of the Moulin for a while.)
(The “Moulin” in the name means Windmill. At that time there were actually two windmills in the pleasure grounds. It was high on a hill.)
Some pictures:

This camera view was taken in the late 1890’s

Painted by Rusiñol, Circa 1891

An assortment of characters standing at the entrance of the pleasure gardens. Fine looking hat on the chap on the left.
This looks fairly shabby from today’s perspective, but we must presume that it looked fantastic at night when all those lamps were lit and the partying began in earnest.

It was establishments like this that gave Montmartre its bohemian reputation in the era of the Belle Epoque.

Little remains of it today except for a rather well preserved but non-functioning windmill and part of the entrance way.

Today’s tourists tick it off their lists, and move on.

The picture below gives an indication of the party atmosphere at the Moulin in the 1890’s.

There was a very rich mix of clients, and all manner of entertainment on offer.

Slightly off topic here, but this next picture of the nightlife at Moulin de la Galette was painted by an extremely youthful compatriot of Rusiñol….

…The nineteen year old Pablo Picasso.

Renoir was there making it look pretty -

And wherever there was drink, dancing and decadence you were sure to find that other famous party animal -

Henri, the wayward scion of the Toulouse-Lautrec family.
(He should really remove his hat in the presence of a lady. After all, she has been polite enough to remove hers.)

A couple more pictures of Rusiñol and his mates -

Looking rather dapper in a big top hat.

Posing as down and outs with (Left to right) Santiago Rusiñol, Ramón Canudas. Miguel Utrillo, and the sculptor, Enric Claraso. (google ‘em)

Rusiñol and his fellow Catalan expatriates horsing about with an unnamed female.

Back to Rusiñol… Although he seems to have had a whale of a time larking about with the demi-monde of bohemian Paris, he began to focus on the deserted and rather desolate daytime aspect of the amusement park as a subject for his paintings.

I’ll show you some of these haunting paintings in my next post.