Oil on canvas vintage lac de Banyoles by Juan de Palau

Magnificent oil on canvas by Catalan-born painter Juan de Palau. Lake Banyoles, a town particularly dear to the artist's heart, is depicted in an absolutely Impressionist style, an open-air setting where colors and light are used to capture the scene with great vitality. The oblique perspective lends great verisimilitude to the composition, with the promenade or pier stretching out over the water and a small group of people strolling along. This type of subject was common in Impressionism, as it provided a natural setting in which the changing light could be shown and captured. At the center of the painting is a white sailboat, its shape emphasized by the light tones of its sail, contrasting with the greens and blues of the water and surrounding landscape. The boat adds a slight dynamism to the scene. The painter uses rapid, thick brushstrokes, particularly in the vegetation and water areas, to capture the way light falls on each element, creating a spectacular interplay of (colored) light and shadow in which nothing is due to chance. The leaves of the trees and the water are represented by touches of bright, loose color, conveying the sensation of movement and the way natural light filters through the branches. The reflection of the driveway and vegetation on the calm waters of the lake is particularly remarkable, and testifies to the painter's mastery. Impressionism, which emerged in France in the last third of the 19th century, is an artistic movement defined primarily by painting. Its main characteristic is that its primary aspiration is to capture the light of a specific moment in its works, which is achieved by means of very rapid, dispersed and material brushstrokes. Thanks to technical and scientific progress, which has enabled the creation of new pigments, the use of pure colors has also become widespread. These achieve a purity and saturation of color previously unthinkable. Complementary colors also became fundamental, as did the type of brushstroke and the total absence of drawing. For the same reason, shadows moved from black in their composition to what we call "colored shadows", mixing complementary colors to darken them without resorting to black. This also helped create a greater sense of depth. This work illustrates many of the characteristics of this style, and the result brings a sense of calm to the viewer contemplating the scene. Joan de Palau i Buxó (1919 - 1991) Born in Girona in 1919. He moved to Madrid to study architecture, but failed to complete his studies due to a lack of vocation. He soon became interested in art and met Santiago Rusiñol, who helped him define his true vocation. He was also a frequent visitor to the painting galleries of the Prado Museum, where he took a particular interest in the great Spanish and Dutch masters. In 1936, before being Reference : 317102