The painting „The Onyar River in Girona”, painted by Mela Muter in the spring of 1914, depicts the most recognizable element of the urban landscape of this Catalan city.

Mela Muter
During her several visits to Catalonia and her exhibitions in Barcelona (1911, Dalmau Gallery) and in Girona (1914), Mela Muter introduced the local artistic community to the new trends of the cosmopolitan art of Paris. The landscape „The Onyar River” in Girona perfectly reflects the painter's individual features and fits perfectly into the mainstream of the artistic experimentation of the artists from the widely understood Paris School. The strong, unconventional color scheme reflecting a personal mood, the inconspicuous monumentalism of the works, as well as the characteristic, seemingly careless way of pulling the brush over the often unprimed canvases made the art of Mela Muter attractive to the Catalans. The monographic presentation of the artist's output in Girona made her a legend in the city. This "exceptional woman" (as the versatile artist Miquel de Palola called her) caused an unusual stir in the intellectual circles of the city. When discussing the artist's achievements at that time, Folch y Torres pointed out the spiritual convergence between Poland and Catalonia. He claimed that in Muter's paintings one could see "some pain" and "raw realism" resulting from the common experience of the lack of statehood.

The painting „L'Onyar a Girona”
In the signature on the painting „L'Onyar a Girona” the artist included her Polish nationality, to which she was very attached throughout her life. Thus she indicated that she belonged to the circle of artists "uprooted from their homeland". Today the work is one of the most important exhibits in the Catalan Museum of Art's 20th century painting collection. In 2018 the Museum opened an exhibition presenting in a beautiful and convincing way the work of Mela Muter set side by side with the works of other Polish artists. The local theatre put up a specially written play about the Polish artist in Catalonia, and her words “No sóc dona, sóc pintora!” (I am not a woman, I am a painter!) sounded again from the stage.

Girona [Catalan pronunciation: Ʒi’ronɘ; Castillian pronunciation: Xe’rona] is a city situated 80km from Barcelona (cinema-goers know it from Tom Tykwer’s movie „Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”)