Joan Abelló — The Explosion of Landscape (Explosivism) — Original Oil on Panel

The triumph of volume and pure color. A tactile landscape that defines the 'explosivism' of one of the great masters and collectors of contemporary Catalan art.

For Joan Abelló (1922-2008), the landscape was never a static scene, but a living force that had to be captured by a direct assault on the support. In this board, the artist from Mollet del Vallès displays his celebrated explosivist language, a methodology where the boundary between painting and sculpture disappears. We are not looking at a flat representation of reality, but an orographic construction of oil; Abelló uses the spatula and heavily loaded brush to create ridges of pigment that trap real light, generating shadows and reliefs that change according to the viewer's position.

The sky, worked with an almost stormy energy, seems to vibrate above a rural building that emerges from the earth with the same material solidity as the surrounding terrain. This work is the testimony of an artist who was also one of Spain's most voracious and cultured collectors; this expert eye allowed him to synthesize the heritage of European post-impressionism and imbue it with an absolutely modern plastic aggressiveness. Observing the piece, one perceives the urgency of the creator: oil ceases to be a medium to become the message itself, an exercise in telluric force where each impasto is a pulsation of the very Catalan land.

Technical Sheet

• Author: Joan Abelló i Prat (1922 - 2008).

• Title / Theme: Rural landscape with building / Material Explosivism.

• Technique: Original oil with high material load (impasto).

• Support: Board / Pressed cardboard.

• Dimensions: 30 x 26 cm.

• Signature: Signed by the author in the lower right corner (incision on the material).

• Style / Movement: Catalan Post-impressionism / Explosivism.

• Provenance: Private Collection.

• Condition: Original condition. As is common in works with this level of material load on flexible supports, it presents natural craquelure and some losses of paint layer (especially visible in the upper sky area and edges), characteristics that attest to the physical tension of the technique and do not interfere with the powerful plastic reading of the landscape.

The Taller Note

The thick impasto gives the painting a strong physical presence. The visible tensions of the dense oil paint against the support form part of the surface’s material character.