Santiago Rusiñol, Barcelona 1861-Aranjuez 1931

L. Folch, Diario de Barcelona, 30 January 1916, p. 1415
J. Francés, Mundo Gráfico, 16 February 1916
Gil Fillol, La Tribuna, 26 March 1916
Gil Fillol, LUH, 26 March 1916
Gil Fillol, Nuevo Mundo, 7 April 1916, illustrated
M. Nelken, ‘El pintor de los jardines de España. Santiago Rusiñol’, Summa, II, no. 13, 15 April 1916, p. 21, illustrated
La Esfera, X, no. 475, 10 February 1923, illustrated
José C. Laplana, Santiago Rusiñol, el pintor, l´home, Barcelona, 1995, p. 422, no. 17.7.11, catalogued
José C. Laplana, La Pintura de Santiago Rusiñol: Obra completa, Barcelona, 2004, p. 184, no. 17.7.12, catalogued and illustrated

'It was as a painter of the exquisite gardens of Spain that Rusiñol was best known, and upon his canvases appear the cypresses of the Generalife, the boxwood gardens and fountains of Granada, and the formal charms of Aranjuez.' (Elizabeth Du Gué Trapier, Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Hispanic Society of America, New York, 1932, vol. I, p. 236).

In 1895, during a visit to Granada, Rusiñol discovered the beauty of landscape gardens, which thereafter became central to his oeuvre. Following the sensational success of his exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1906 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.

Buoyed by his success in Paris, Rusiñol became ever more prolific, painting not only the gardens of Granada, but gardens throughout Spain. He travelled to Mallorca (see lot 118), Gerona, Horta, Cataluña, Valencia, Játiva, La Granja, and Aranjuez. He was particularly attracted to these last two Castilian gardens, not only because of their beauty, but because they reminded him of the great baroque Spanish painter Velázquez, whom he greatly admired.

As well as recording the flowers, plants, and trees of the places he visited, he also imbued them with a sense of wonder and mystery. In the present work, the cypresses stand watch like sentinels, guarding a secret world beyond, rather like in Arnold Böcklin's Symbolist tour de force, The Island of the Dead (fig.1), which Rusiñol may well have known.

Fig. 1, Arnold Böcklin, The Island of the Dead (detail), 1886, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig 277D05102