Enrique Munné (1880-1949) - Paisaje

Pictura Subastas presents this magnificent work of art by Enrique Munné, depicting a rural road surrounded by trees and vegetation that leads to a tranquil village church, evoking serenity, memory, and harmony with nature. The painting stands out for its excellent technique and the high pictorial quality it conveys.

· Dimensions with frame: 68x83x3 cm.
· Dimensions without frame: 46x60 cm.
· Oil on panel signed by the artist in the lower left corner.
· The piece is in good conservation condition.
· The work is sold with a beautiful frame (included in the auction as a gift).

The work comes from an exclusive private collection in Girona.

Important note: the photographs included are an integral part of the lot description. Digital representation in an orientative mockup; there may be differences from the actual article in color, scale and details.

The painting will be professionally packed by an IVEX expert (https://www.instagram.com/ivex.online/), using high-quality materials to ensure its protection. The shipping price covers both the cost of professional packaging and the transport itself.
Shipping will be carried out by Correos, GLS or NACEX with tracking. International shipping available.

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This painting presents an evocative rural landscape dominated by a road that advances from the foreground to a small church located at the center of the composition. The scene is surrounded by slender trees, abundant vegetation and buildings discreetly integrated into the surroundings, creating the image of a quiet and remote village. The combination of deep greens, bright yellows, ochres, purples, and blue tones transforms the landscape into a vision full of energy and emotion. Although there are no human figures, everything seems to lead toward the inhabited core in the background, inviting the viewer to walk along the path and enter this quiet corner.

The road constitutes the great visual axis of the work. It starts wide at the lower area and gradually narrows as it approaches the church, generating a deep sense of distance. Its slightly irregular path appears to adapt to the natural shapes of the terrain and is defined by warm tones of beige, sand, ochre, pink, and light brown. The small chromatic variations across its surface suggest unevenness, footprints, and areas of more compact earth, giving it a lively, traveled appearance.

The width of the path in the foreground makes the viewer feel placed within the landscape. The scene is not viewed from a distant position, but from the path itself, as if about to begin a walk toward the settlement. This arrangement creates an immediate relationship with the surroundings and turns the journey into a near-personal experience. The gaze naturally moves from the nearby earth to the central buildings, revealing on both sides an extraordinary richness of colors and plant forms.

At the heart of the composition rises a church with a simple and compact appearance. Its tower, narrow and vertical, rises above the neighboring buildings and acts as the main reference point of the landscape. The façade gathers tones of mauves, violets, blue-gray, and soft pink reflections, which contrast with the warm colors of the roofs and with the greens of the terrain. Its presence conveys serenity and grants the scene a spiritual character, as if the small temple quietly protected the entire village.

The tower stands out for its vertical shape and the delicate definition of its top. Several dark openings are distinguished, adding depth and suggesting the interior space of the bell tower. Above them rises a sharp-edged roof, topped by a small element that reinforces the upward movement. Despite its small size within the landscape, the church dominates the composition thanks to its central location and the clarity that surrounds it.

Next to the temple appear other lower buildings, possibly rural houses or dependencies linked to village life. Their sloped roofs unfold in ochre, orange, brown, and reddish tones, creating a warm contrast with the violet and blue walls. Some façades are partially hidden by trees and shrubs, increasing the sense that the village has grown naturally among the vegetation. The buildings seem to form a compact and welcoming unit at the end of the path.

To the left of the church there is a succession of more discreet constructions, whose profiles blend with the background hills. Their blueish and grayish roofs extend horizontally under the sky and provide continuity to the small rural nucleus. Some green and rounded shapes also appear, which could correspond to trees, tanks, or elements typical of agricultural life. These details enrich the scene and suggest a inhabited place, though momentarily immersed in deep calm.

The trees play an essential role in organizing the landscape. Two large trunks, located on either side of the composition, frame the road and guide the gaze toward the center. The tree on the right has an especially powerful presence: its dark trunk rises from the foreground vegetation and splits into numerous branches that extend across the top. Its black, firm silhouette contrasts intensely with the blue-tinged clarity of the sky.

On the left side another tree with a sinuous trunk appears, slightly leaning toward the path. Its thin branches spread in different directions and create a delicate network of dark lines across the sky. The curved form of the trunk adds movement and disrupts the horizontal stability of the ground. Among its branches you can perceive small ochre, reddish, and greenish notes suggesting sparse leaves, perhaps belonging to a transitional season between late autumn and early spring.

The relative bareness of many trees gives the scene a particular atmosphere. The bare branches allow us to see the sky and the buildings without completely hiding them, while the vegetation on the ground preserves a surprisingly rich chromatic intensity. This coexistence between bare trees and bright greens creates an interesting seasonal ambiguity. The landscape seems to be in a moment of change, when nature still retains warm colors and at the same time hints at a new stage.

The foreground vegetation extends with great vitality on both sides of the road. In the left area, yellows, light greens, ochres, and small violet accents predominate, while on the right deep greens, browns, reddish tones, and blacks dominate. These color masses do not form rigid boundaries but intertwine and advance over one another, conveying the sense of spontaneous ground covered with grasses, shrubs, fallen leaves, and wildflowers.

The right side is especially intense due to a dark band of vegetation accompanying the large tree. Among the almost black greens appear flashes of orange, red, white, yellow, and violet that animate the area and prevent it from being completely swallowed by shadow. These small color notes may evoke dried leaves, fruits, flowers, or bright reflections on the ground. The variety of nuances makes each fragment of the landscape seem to have its own rhythm.

In contrast, the left side offers a greater sense of openness. The terrain extends toward the buildings with green and yellow illuminated zones, interrupted by small stones, shrubs, and slender-trunked trees. In the distance, blueish elevations or mountains can be glimpsed, partly hidden by the church and by vegetation. Their soft profiles help situate the village within a broader environment and reinforce the sense of rural isolation.

The sky occupies a large part of the upper area and envelops the entire scene in changing clarity. Celestial blues and turquoise mix with whites, soft grays, pale yellows, and delicate lilac reflections. The clouds are distributed irregularly, forming large luminous surfaces that seem to move slowly across the landscape. This atmospheric variety adds depth and prevents the sky from feeling like a uniform background.

Light seems to filter through the clouds and scatter in fragmented ways over the ground. Some areas of the road and vegetation glow with yellows and light greens, while others remain protected by bluish, violet, and brown shadows. This alternation creates the feeling of a cool day when the sun appears and disappears behind the clouds. The landscape changes before the eye, as if each new clarity reveals a different color.

The chromatic range possesses extraordinary richness. The warm tones of the path and roofs find their counterpoint in the blues of the sky and mountains, while the violets of the church establish a link between the two groups. Yellows and greens bring brightness; reddish tones introduce warmth; and the blacks of the trunks provide structure and firmness. All these colors are distributed in a balanced way, giving rise to a vibrant image that also preserves deep harmony.

The composition establishes a delicate dialogue between nature and architecture. The trees seem to open up to reveal the church, while the road acts as a direct link between the viewer and the small built core. The houses do not dominate the landscape; instead they adapt to it and are surrounded by vegetation. This integration conveys the idea of a slow rural life, deeply connected with the land, the seasons, and the surroundings.

The absence of people reinforces the sense of silence, but does not make the place an abandoned space. The road, the houses, and the church suggest a nearby community, perhaps gathered inside the houses or engaged in tasks outside the field of view. It seems that at any moment one might hear a bell, see a walker, or see the doors of the village open. This implied human presence gives the work a narrative character and allows imagining numerous stories.

The church can also be interpreted as a symbol of refuge, permanence, and destination. Located at the end of the road, it seems to represent a point of arrival after traversing the landscape. The path thus takes on a meaning beyond its physical function and can be understood as a metaphor of life’s journey, the search for calm, or returning to a familiar place. The small village appears as a protected space amidst a powerful and changing nature.

The work awakens an intense sense of memory. The dirt road, the bare trees, the warm roofs, and the church tower evoke ancient towns, peaceful strolls, and landscapes contemplated during childhood. It is not merely a representation of a specific place, but an image capable of gathering universal memories related to home, the passage of time, and the serenity of rural life. Its atmosphere invites stopping and contemplating every corner calmly.

Overall, the work depicts a rural road leading to a small church and the houses of a village, surrounded by slender trees, lush vegetation, and distant mountains. The depth of the path, the powerful presence of the dark trunks, the richness of greens, yellows, ochres, and violets, and the breadth of the blue sky build a scene full of movement and sensitivity. The landscape conveys quiet, contemplation, and a deep connection with nature, turning the journey toward the village into an evocative image of refuge, memory, and harmony.