En Malavida, retrat de Lluís Magrans (Mr. Badlife, portrait of Lluís Magrans)

"Lluís Magrans, whose nickname was En Malavida (Mr. Bad Life), was one of Santiago Rusiñol’s Sitges friends whom he painted following the dictates of the Modernist portrait. Instead of heeding the academic tradition being promoted from Madrid, he took painters like Velázquez or the French artists Manet and Degas as his models. Rusiñol depicted his friend immersed in a scene from his everyday life, in a humble interior dressed in the typical clothing of fishermen and seated on a wicker chair, just at the time when he is disentangling his fishing longline. In the background, the open door allowed him to paint the effects of light. Unlike the portraits in the previous rooms, this is not a prestigious portrait in which the figure poses in his best garb to give a certain image of himself, as in commissioned portraits. Here, the painter himself chose the way he wanted to depict his friend, and he did so as if he had surprised him at a random moment in his everyday life, when he was working, like a photograph but with the intention of capturing his personality as well. In a similar vein are the portraits of En Cuca (Retrat de Pere Forment) (Portrait of Pere Forment) in Hall 10, and En Tirano (Retrat de Salvador Robert) (Mr. Tyrant. Portrait of Salvador Robert) in Hall 16. (Museu de Maricel, Sitges, Col. d'Art de la Vila, 4001)"