1. Character

Landscape and seascape painter, Eliseo Meifrén i Roig (Barcelona, 1859-1940), is considered one of the first introducers of the movement impressionist in Catalonia.

Passionate about painting, the young Meifrén abandoned the medical career to begin your artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he was a disciple by Antonio Caba and Ramón Martí Alsina. From them he learned to make romantic landscapes of academic invoice.

       2. First years

After finishing his studies, he moved to Paris in 1879 , coinciding with the fourth impressionist exhibition held In this city. In order to expand your artistic knowledge, installed there and survived with the sale of small tables and notes, predominantly urban in theme. There met first-hand painting a ' plen air ', that influenced powerfully in his Parisian landscapes of those years. Paradoxes of life, that same year he won the first prize of the Fine Arts Exhibition held in Valencia, with Chretielle Landscape , a most academic painting.

And it is that Meifrén evolved at his own pace, and although he assumed immediately the spirit and philosophy of the freedom impressionist, his painting needed a few years to approach this current and leave behind the influence of the School of Barbizon . In this first stage of formation, his work was defined by a muted palette, with shades of gray.

In 1882 he married Dolores Pajarín, with whom he settled in Paris . There performed numerous drawings and watercolors with views of the city and its cafes, which earned him a warm welcome by French critics and the public.

       3. The change

His first major solo show was at the Paris Room of Barcelona in 1889 , presenting sixty oil paintings, almost all in large format. Meifren surprised everyone by going against local custom, auctioning off all the unsold paintings in the exhibition: with the result of the sale, traveled to Italy to continue his career.

Here started a change in your pictorial style : His palette cleared up, began to use tones light blue , white Y gold , and accentuated all the shades of its seas and rivers. It was constant the attraction from the artist by coast : the population of Cadaqués it was his inspiration, his refuge, his summer rest. His brushstrokes, strokes distributed in a disorderly manner to the naked eye, formed extraordinary landscapes endowed with great depth and lyricism.

       4. The maturity of the artist

With his arrival in 1907 to Mallorca , Eliseo arrived also to the pictorial maturity from your palette: Blues will become a lively and dynamic element, and the rest of the primary colors will be accentuated and intensified. From that moment, and until the end of his career, he succeeded in his work effects as opposite and complex as those of its twilights and sunrises or the night views in the light of the moon. This evolution involved a simplification in the brushstroke and the development of chromatic solutions to convey the essence of its landscapes.

After his many travels in Europe and America, in 1917 came back to Barcelona , where he continued exposing. After the death of his wife Dolores in 1924, Meifrén returned to marry in 1930. With him start of the Spanish civil war , the painter was forced to flee with part of his family to Manresa , where they remained refugees until the end of the war, in 1939. That same year he returned to Barcelona and prepared which was his last show: a great show at the Gaspar Room , with great success from the public and sales. However, a Meifrén, already ill, could not attend the event. A few weeks later, the artist suffered a worsening in your condition, and passed away on February 5 1940 .

       5. Collectibles

Currently his work is represented in the Prado Museum , the MNAC , or the Carmen Thyssen Museum from Malaga, among many others, as well as in a large number of private collections.

In Balclis We have always been great admirers of the artist, so in our On the web you can often find interesting examples of the work of the painter. Register now and bid for your favorite aquí.