Almond Trees in Blossom

Darío de Regoyos sought to trap the ephemeral effects of sunlight on his canvases. Using small touches of color, he captured "impressions" of reflections upon a landscape seen in full sun, painted directly from nature—in this case, in Irún in 1902.

As in French Impressionist painting, the shadows are violet-toned, and the colors become vibrant under the sun.

The focal point of the scene is situated in a patch of intense red at the center: the parasol of a solitary figure moving along the path, followed by the eyes of the spectator.

In many of the artist's paintings, he uses this resource of figures seen from behind in the distance—a silent human presence in the middle of a canvas where the landscape, the genre most cultivated by the painter, is the absolute protagonist.

This bears a great similarity to the compositions of his friend Camille Pissarro.

Regoyos approached the innovations proposed by French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the very moment these movements, decisive for late 19th-century art, were developing.

He came into direct contact with their creators, such as Pissarro or the Pointillists Seurat and Signac. The technique devised by the latter is what Regoyos follows in this canvas.

The field of intense green and yellow tones and the trees with white canopies unfold in a mosaic of short brushstrokes. These are dabs of color that, when unified in the retina, reveal a flowery meadow and the beauty of the almond blossoms.

In contrast to the intensely illuminated field, the sky is covered with clouds painted in cool tones and long, horizontal brushstrokes. these provide a sense of distance and exemplify the northern skies and coasts that fascinated the painter and take center stage here.

In the distance, a space transformed by man provides a counterpoint to the placid nature of the foreground. A column of smoke, perhaps from a factory, blends into the clouds, showing the coexistence of the rural landscape with urban modernization.

This is a recurring theme in Regoyos's work, serving as a testimony to his own era and the imminent changes to the Spanish landscape during the industrialization and urban development of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As is common in Regoyos's works, the viewpoint here is slightly elevated, as if we were observing the scene from a hill or a terrace.

Several lines organize the composition: the diagonal path, which directs the viewer's gaze toward the background, and the horizontal lines of the water, the strip of land in the distance, and the cloud-filled sky.

The work was once owned by another painter linked to Impressionism and a great friend of Regoyos, Maximilien Luce, whom he met during his years of residence in Brussels at the exhibitions organized by the influential local art group "Les XX."

The Asturian painter was a member of this group and, through it, maintained close contact with the international avant-garde of his time, that of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.