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After a long period in Paris, where he had joined Post-Impressionist groups and was very active as an engraver, Sunyer returned to his homeland and redirected the course of his art towards a sober Mediterranean style based on the geometric volumes characteristic of Cézanne. His one-man show at the Fayans Català gallery in Barcelona in April 1911 was a revelation and an article published in the review Museum by Joan Maragall, probably the most respected Catalan intellectual of the time, established Sunyer's reputation as a painter whose works symbolised a new form of Catalanness.

Nonell's death early that year had left the most advanced Catalan painting bereft of leadership, for Anglada-Camarasa lived afar and Joaquim Mir was recovering from mental problems that had not stopped him from painting but had prevented him from assuming artistic leadership. Consequently, when a surprisingly renewed Sunyer made an unexpected appearance he was welcomed by many as the painter who championed the new artistic movement known as noucentisme, widely advertised by the charismatic writer Eugenio d'Ors. After 1923 and during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, the movement lost the prominent role it had played while the Mancomunitat de Catalunya held power, albeit many of the most emblematic artists of the movement would continue to abide by its aesthetic
principles. Sunyer remained faithful to this style for practically the rest of his career, as exemplified by works of the 1920s that still presented characteristic traits of the movement that he had helped to shape.

Catalan and Basque artistic circles of the period were on very good terms and Sunyer held a solo exhibition at the Association of Basque Artists in Bilbao in February 1925, where Nude in the Countryside was acquired. The two oil paintings discussed here are therefore paradigmatic works of Catalan noucentista painting. The schematic pine-tree landscape is a tribute to the Mediterraneanism advocated by an advanced noucentisme, while the feminine nude, removed from sexual implications and depicted in a natural setting resembling that of the previous picture, is archetypal of the ideal Catalonia conceived by the artists and intellectuals influenced by the nationalist ideologue Prat de la Riba, which a host of historical circumstances had prevented from materialising. [F.F.]

Selected bibliography

• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 134-135.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 134-135.
• Fontbona, Francesc. "Joaquim Sunyer en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao = Joaquim Sunyer in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum = Joaquim Sunyer Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoan", Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin, n° 8. 2014. pp. 159-183, 281-290.
• Exposición organizada con motivo de la concesión, por la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, de la Medalla de Honor al Ayuntamiento de la Villa [Folleto]. Bilbao, Ayuntamiento, 1952. n° cat. 55.
• Benet, Rafael. Sunyer. Barcelona, Polígrafa, 1975. p. 205. N° cat. 452.
• Bengoechea, Javier de. Catálogo de arte moderno y contemporáneo del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. Bilbao, Banco de Vizcaya, 1980. p. 112. (Con el título Desnudo en el campo).
• Joaquin Sunyer, 1874-1956 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, Fundació Caixa de Pensions, 1983. N° cat. 37
• Mur Pastor, Pilar. La Asociación de Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao ; Caja de Ahoros Vizcaína, 1985. p. 105.
• Tesoros del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : pintura, 1400-1939 [Cat. exp.]. Madrid, El Viso, 1989. pp. 132-133, n° cat. 50.
• En el umbral de la modernidad : I Centenario del Diario de Burgos : 1891-1991 [Cat. exp.]. Burgos, Diario de Burgos, 1991. pp. 46-47.
• Tradition and modernity in basque painting, 1880-1939 = Tradición y modernidad en la pintura vasca, 1880-1939 [Cat. exp.]. Southampton ; Bilbao, Southampton City Art Gallery ; Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 1997. p. 37, il.
• Zugaza, Miguel ... [et al.]. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : maestros antiguos y modernos. Bilbao, Fundación Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa = Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa Fundazioa, 1999. p. 202.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 134-135.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 134-135.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. pp. 134-135.
• Novecentismo y Vanguardia, 1910-1936 : en la colección del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2009. pp. 120-121.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : Guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. pp. 134-135, n° cat. 92b.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. pp. 134-135, n° cat. 92b.