Rusiñol and the Gardens of the Generalife: the awakening of a poetic artist

Over the first decades of the 20th century, he forged strong links with the Grenadian intellectual community thanks to Antonio Barrios ‘El Polinario’, whose inn, located in Calle Real and popular among Grenadian intellectuals and visitors, became a hotspot for exchange among artists of all disciplines.

This pictorial episode was a landmark in the development of artistic modernity, for it followed an alternative route aimed at reestablishing the link between painting and nature. Rather than placing towns in the centre of his paintings, Rusiñol offered nature the leading role in his work, using the image of the symbolic and poetic garden to crystallise his aesthetic ideology.