A professional decorative painter, by which he earned his living, his apprenticeship was almost self-taught. He went to Madrid in 1884 to study the Spanish painters of the Golden Age and, thanks to a recommendation from Elisenda Cerdà, daughter of the architect Ildefons Cerdà, he became a student of Carlos de Haes, the Belgian artist, who was a teacher of landscapes at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. In this mature work, naturalism gives way to a vigorous and impulsive interpretation of reality. With strong contrasts and expressiveness within the same chromatic range, greens dominate the composition. The brushwork is direct -alla prima without a preparatory drawing- and it is very material and impastoed. He painted in this way, often with pleinairism, in an agile and expressive manner. His work would evolve towards a personal impressionist style. His landscapes portray a powerful dynamism in which the atmospheric elements and colour are of great importance, especially in the use of light and backlighting. The construction of space in the piece, through the overhead perspective of colour and gradual tones, conveys the planes and depth of the landscape. In this painting, practically monochrome in green, we observe a great modernity, close to abstraction. Gimeno, while not fully adopting the formal aspects of impressionism, coincided with this movement in his direct open-air creations and his short, powerful and quick brushwork.

Oil on canvas

60x80 cm

Francesc Gimeno, 1858 - 1927