Landscape

In this painting on canvas, Ignacio Mallol (Tarragona 1892- Bogotá 1940) embodies the essence of Noucentism where the sensation of rest, serenity and calm impregnate the atmosphere of the work. Mallol depicts a rural landscape in which he expresses an exaltation of nature, idealising what he sees before him.

The foreground presents us with a tree, possibly a banana tree (Platanus x hispanica) or an oak (Quercus robur) with a serpentine trunk, with clearly defined lines and dominated by cold colours.

To give it depth, at the bottom of the work he creates marked colour stains to produce a cloak of flowers on the floor of the forest that gradually blur into the background. The stains in the foreground appear to have been applied with a brush and alternated with the artist’s fingerprints.

He juxtaposes other types of trees, such as birch (Betula celtiberica) or beech (Fagus sylvatica), with streamlined trunks that create straight lines and give the work verticality.

A small group of trees are located to the left in the background, and the artist achieves luminosity by applying lighter tones and small stains in ochre hues, as if the light emanated from the left-hand side of the work. With regard to the sky, it is invaded by cirrus clouds, which are characterised for looking like filaments or straight lines, in this case, with a diagonal marking. In meteorology, this type of cloud indicates that a sudden change in the weather will occur within the next 24 hours. We do not know whether this change occurred or not, but we do know that the artist produced this work in the open air, as he often did, managing to capture the splendour of the landscape he was observing at that moment, and applying his own subjectivity to create an idealised atmosphere.

More information about the artist