SANTIAGO RUSIÑOL I PRATS (Barcelona, 1861 - Aranjuez, Madrid, 1931). "Garden". Pencil on paper. Signed in the lower right corner. Size: 22 x 22 cm; 36 x 36 cm (frame). Painter, writer and playwright in Catalan, Rusiñol was one of the main ideologists of the Catalan modernist movement. He trained as a disciple of Tomás Moragas and frequented the Centre of Watercolourists, of which he was one of the founders. He made his debut in 1884 at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, together with his friends Ramón Casas and Enric Clarasó. In those years he made a carriage trip around Catalonia with Casas, taking sketches of types and landscapes. The year 1888 marked a turning point in his career, as he began three new activities: he published some writings in "La Vanguardia", took part in the Paris Salon and held his first individual exhibition at the Sala Parés. The following year, 1889, Rusiñol settled in Paris, in the Montmartre district, with Utrillo, Clarasó and Canudas. He attended the academy of the painter Henri Gervex, and completed his training with Puvis de Chavannes and Carrière. The ruralism he had adopted in Barcelona disappeared and his style evolved towards naturalism. He also came closer to the thematic, but not technical, approaches of the Impressionists, as well as to their desire to capture a fleeting snapshot. In 1890 he established a relationship with Sitges, where he painted some of his first courtyards and gardens, a theme that would define his later style. That same year he held his first exhibition at the Sala Parés, together with Casas and Clarasó. In 1890 he returned to Paris with Casas and Utrillo. At this time he concentrated on depicting the entertainment venues of the area, such as the Moulin de la Galette, which featured in many of his paintings. However, in 1893 he left his studio in Montmartre and moved to the Île Saint-Louis, where he focused on the psychological study of the figure, particularly the female figure, reflecting the sadness, melancholy and solitude typical of the fin-de-siècle period. The following year he travelled to Italy with Zuloaga, visiting Pisa, Florence and other places, which allowed him to get to know the primitives at close quarters. On his return he exhibited the paintings he had made on this trip in what was to be his first personal exhibition at the Sala Parés. That same year he opened the Cau Ferrat in Sitges, the seed of today's museum. In 1895 he made his first trip to Granada, and began the series "Gardens of Spain". In 1897 he produced some of his best paintings of gardens, an interest that also appears in his literary work "The Abandoned Garden", where he cultivates a symbolist decadentism. The elegant garden becomes the protagonist, a symbol of poetry; the abandoned garden hides a past of lost splendour. Rusiñol then travelled in search of gardens that seduced him, and he painted them from within, showing his personal conception of beauty, life and death, art and reality, solitude and the passing of time. Around this time he exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants, at the Exposition Nationale and at the gallery of Samuel Bing, the main promoter of Art Nouveau in France. The latter, a solo exhibition held in 1899, brought international recognition to Rusiñol, whose success was based on a new vision of Spain, totally free of clichés and full of truth. From then on his activity multiplied as a painter, novelist and comedian, he premiered outstanding works in Madrid and Barcelona and held annual painting exhibitions at the Sala Parés, always with Casas and Clarasó. In 1908 he was awarded the medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. He is represented in the Museo del Prado, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, the Museo Camón Aznar in Zaragoza and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, among others.