The Spanish artist Darío de Regoyos had close relations with Belgium: he was the pupil of Carlos de Haes (a Spanish-Belgian painter) in Madrid and he moved to Brussels in 1879, where he stayed off and on until 1890, when he settled in Spain. In Brussels he attended the courses of Joseph Quinaux at the Royal Academy, supported by the Boagaerts family, he enjoyed also the benevolence of Edmond Picard and met the painter Théo Van Rysselberghe, who introduced him to the group L’Essor (1880). Then he took part in Les XX, which he remained faithful to, participating in all the editions, until it converted to La libre esthétique (1895-1914). Regoyos was much loved by the Belgian artists, so much so that he received a posthumous tribute, in which 63 of his works were exhibited, together with those of others .
He cannot be considered totally impressionist or neo-impressionist, though his main interests are light, en plein air painting and brilliant colours.
This landscape, which shows a link with Turner and Monet but also with Redon, is unique in his production and it is an excellent example of the artist’s skill in expressing the intensity of light, concentrated in the sun, painted with dense brush strokes. From a terrace, the artist becomes the spectator of a powerful sunset, the main protagonist of the scene, along with the building in the background, which is likely a church. The silhouette of the latter is not comparable to others painted by the artist, and it is a bit difficult to identify due to the artist’s many travels; notwithstanding, after some research, we can affirm that it is almost surely Spanish, it could be Seville’s cathedral or San Agustín’s church in Valencia or the Bilbao cathedral.
The first known owner of the painting is Rodrigo Soriano, art critic and important politician, who wrote the first monograph on Regoyos (1922), having met him in 1890 .
