Santiago Rusiñol

He was most known for his plays, and landscape and garden paintings. He died in Aranjuez in 1931 while painting its famous gardens

He was a writer, known for L'auca del senyor Esteve (1929), El místico (1926) and La alegría que pasa (1934).

In the following two decades, he received significant recognition while acquiring undeniable prestige in Barcelona despite the rejection of the new Noucentista artists and critics, notably the art critic Eugeni d'Ors, who wrote in the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya. In 1917, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government. He received his last tribute in Sitges in 1926. He died in Aranjuez in 1931. The Spanish Republic's provisional government ordered an official funeral in Madrid, which the president, Manuel Azaña, head and was later burried in Barcelona.

In 1899, due to a severe illness, he was reunited with his wife. When he got better, he went back to France to detoxify from the morphine addiction with her and his daughter. A year later, he underwent surgery that left him with only one kidney, marking a new vital stage in his career. In 1903, he was considered a renowned artist.  In the first decade of the twentieth century, he consolidated his prestige as a prolific painter and writer, both in Barcelona and throughout Spain and Paris. He received more awards and nominations. In France, he got official recognition in 1908 when he became a Member of the Paris Salon.

Life Pages (Fulls de Vida) 1898 is a collection of short stories of a decadent type that are his inspiration for plays he wrote later.

Walking Around the World (1896) is the compilation of his writings between 1893 and 1898, a book that contains poems in prose and other texts that outline the modern artist's model.

In 1893 he set up his studio in Sitges, known as the Cau Ferrat, to collect the antique irons it contains. The town became a modernist reference point for artists, writers and musicians promoted by Rusiñol, who organized modernist festivals, combining theatre, poetry, painting and music, also known as Gesamtkunstwerk. At the same time, the artist consolidated his talents as a writer, and from the beginning of the 1890s, he wrote narrative works and poems in prose. Some of his novels were adapted and performed in the theatre, such as L'auca del senyor Esteve, written in 1907 and released a few years later.

1891 Sketch of Erik Satie playing a harmonium, by Rusiñol]]

In 1888, he affirmed himself as a writer, regularly collaborating with articles in the newspaper La Vanguardia. In 1889 he broke off the family's relationship, a rupture that lasted ten years; however, he kept in touch with his daughter. In 1889 he went to study in Paris, where he lived for long periods during the first half of the nineties, a crucial period in his creative career.

He was born in Barcelona into a textile industrialists' family from Manlleu, where they owned the Rusiñol textile mill town, known as Can Ramissa. His father was Joan Rusiñol i Andreu and his mother, from Barcelona, Amàlia Prats i Caravent. Santiago Rusiñol appeared in his registration in the civil registry with the names of Jaume -James- (not Santiago), Jacint, Lluís and baptized in the church of Sant Cugat del Rec close to Barcelona. Although he inherited the family business, his interest in painting art began to take shape during his adolescence. On June 19, 1886, he married Lluïsa Denís i Reverter. In this marriage registry at the Civil Registry of Barcelona, Rusiñol reappears with the name of Jaume. The following year, his daughter, Maria Agustina, was born, but a few months later, his restless nature, lack of interest in the family business, and desire to paint, travel, and discover the world took him away from his own family. Santiago handed over the company's management to his brother Albert. Albert became a well-known businessman and politician, deputy and senator. From the moment he gives the factory's control to this brother, Santiago began to travel through Catalonia and Spain, France and Italy. Travel will be a constant in the life of the artist.

In 1883 he discovered the urban landscape from Joan Roig i Soler's paintings, technical perfection and interpretive freedom that impressed him. This motivated him to paint Port of Barcelona, and then he made other compositions of old Barcelona, such as Racó de Santa Maria del Mar (1885) or La plaça del Born (1885). Rusiñol evolved but remained interested in realism, and during the years 1887 and 1888, he added characters to the landscape. Paint scenes related to work and corners of the urban landscape with characters in natural attitudes or daily tasks. Good examples are Pedrera de Montjuïc or Cargolada. These works, which he exhibits at the Parés Gallery, are described as naturalistic and, in general, have a good acceptance from critics. Art critics such as Frederic Rahola, who published in the newspaper La Vanguardia, praise the painter.

In 1882 he took part in the first exhibition of the Acadèmia de Belles Arts de Sabadell.

The painting El bosque is an example of this theme. At this time, he was also interested in the human figure, keeping with the time's tendency. The appetite for literary themes is represented in the painting Fausto, and the taste for the exotic, in Peregrino, exhibited at the Sala Parés 1880. Note that this will be the gallery in Barcelona where he usually displays throughout life.

He enrolled the atelier of the painter Tomàs Moragas, Centro de Aquarelistas de Barcelona where he learned drawing and various techniques, such as oil and watercolour. He had his first exhibition at the Sala Parés, in Barcelona, in 1879, in a collective exhibition; he participated with a small painting of a studio's interior with the figure of a model. Here he met the painter Joaquim Vayreda, who specialized in the landscape. Vayreda inspired Rusiñol to explore nature's representation, not to copy it, but to interpret it, as the painter from Olot does. It adopts this topic as opposed to historical themes, which at the time were fashionable

Santiago Rusiñol was born on February 24, 1861 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain as Santiago Rusiñol i Prats.