Nonell formed at the Llotja de Barcelona.
Between the years 1894 and 1896 the landscape was the genre of the first years in Nonell’s work. He went to Sant Martí de Provençals, with his box and palette of colors to paint small landscapes, being part of the Sant Martí group, with Ricard Canals, Ramon Pitxot, Joaquim Mir, Adrià Gual, Jooaquim Sunyer or Juli Vallmitjana, when the trend dominated post-impressionist imported from Paris by Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas.
All of them had the same artistic concerns: landscape painting and the concern for light and atmospheric effects. Folded, they organized pictorial excursions to experience the “plein air” in the Barcelona extraradio and painted in a semi-impressionist aesthetic language, often in warm tones with a predominance of the use of yellows, ochres and greens, so the group received the denomination of La Colla del Safrà.