Matilla i Marina’s painting could be defined as impressionistic-nuanced naturalism. This Catalan artist takes his starting point from reality, which he then interprets with an expressiveness that is restrained yet at once highly plastic, reminiscent in ways of his coeval Eliseu Meifrèn (1857-1940).

The work at hand is a superb oil sketch on cardboard, charged with all the immediacy and instinctiveness one would expect from hurried execution, undertaken, in all likelihood, en plein air. This circumstance makes the piece all the more interesting, for it provides an insight into the artist’s first steps, when his way of painting was more spontaneous.

Seascapes, a frequent theme in Matilla’s output, provided him with a range of visual stimuli such as the reflection of sunlight on the water and on the sand, the swell of the waves, and even the bathers are reflected with an agile movement of the paintbrush. The overcast morning sky is depicted here with the gesturalism and elegance that were to be the painter’s signature trademark. This little oil painting is, in short, a highly admirable work.