L’estació de Sitges (The Sitges Station)

"The painters in the Luminist School were particularly interested in capturing man’s effect on the environment and the changes that time imprinted on the landscape. The main feature of this work is not only enjoyment but also the notion of progress. The same composition also encompasses three elements in the modernisation of Sitges, for which the citizens had been fighting for some years. The first is the railway, which had opened just the year before, in 1881. The second is a stretch of motorway crossing the rails which had joined the village with Barcelona since 1880, and which delimited the new boundary of the village. The last element is the telegraph pole in the foreground. The Sitges that Joan Roig i Soler knew when he moved there in 1878 was a Sitges undergoing transformations which were changing the urban physiognomy. Roig i Soler, a prominent landscape painter, also captured Blanes, Tossa de Mar, Cadaqués, Moià, Camprodon, Barcelona, Mallorca and Badalona with a style that is related to Impressionism but was inspired instead by the Modernism of Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas, who learned about Sitges thanks to him. He displayed his works not only in Barcelona but also in Madrid, Zaragoza, Paris and other cities. (Museu de Maricel, Sitges, Col. Art de la Vila, 11084)"