LLUIS RIGALT I FARRIOLS (Barcelona, 1814 - 1894).
"Landscape with figures".
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 65 x 83 cm; 77 x 96 cm (frame).
Painter, decorator and draughtsman, son of the painter and heraldist Pablo Rigalt i Fargas, Lluís Rigalt specialised in landscape painting. He studied at the La Lonja School in Barcelona and, apparently, also in Madrid with Jenaro Pérez Villamil. In 1841 he accidentally replaced his father in his classes at La Lonja, where he would later become a teacher of perspective and landscape from 1845 (confirmed in 1850). From 1847 he took part in the Fine Arts Exhibitions in Barcelona, and in 1858 he was awarded an honourable mention at the National Exhibition in Madrid for the painting entitled "Recuerdos de Cataluña" ("Memories of Catalonia"). As an illustrator, in 1857 he produced an "Ãlbum enciclopédico pintoresco de artes industriales", and in 1863 a series of "Cartapacios de dibujo para uso de las escuelas de instrucción primaria". He also illustrated the works "España pintoresca" and "Historia de Cataluña". His drawings of the tomb for the funeral of Martínez de la Rosa, erected in Barcelona cathedral, and those of the sword of honour given to General O'Donnell by the Catalan provinces in 1862 are also noteworthy. He also produced decorations such as the paintings for the rooms where Queen Isabella II stayed in Barcelona in 1845, as well as those for the Santa Cruz theatre, also in his native city. In 1885 he travelled to Paris with the commission to install the works of art presented by Spain at the Paris Exhibition, and once there he was fascinated by the attitude of the landscape painters of the Barbizon School. Lluís Rigalt was director of the La Lonja School between 1877 and 1878, representing a more advanced position than that of his predecessor Claudio Lorenzale because, although he was still a romantic like the Nazarenes, he did not participate in their mystical archaeology, but approached nature directly. In addition to teaching in Barcelona, he was an academician of merit at the San Fernando University in Madrid, and through his teaching work, as well as that of his father, landscape painting began to enjoy great consideration in Catalonia, despite the fact that until then it had been a little cultivated and scarcely appreciated genre in Spain. He cultivated a highly elaborate landscape painting, mythologising nature and often centred on romantic ruins, and was also noted for his numerous drawings, which often reproduced monuments and corners doomed to disappear with the urban reform of Barcelona. He also drew rural landscapes of Bañolas, the Maresme, Blanes, Lloret, Tossa, Martorell, etc. He is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the Sant Jordi Academy of Fine Arts, the MACBA and the Barcelona City History Museum, among other important public and private collections.