He enrolled the atelier of the painter Tomàs Moragas, "Centro de Aquarelistas de Barcelona" where he learned drawing and various techniques, such as oil and watercolour. He had his first exhibition at the Sala Parés, in Barcelona, in 1879, in a collective exhibition; he participated with a small painting of a studio's interior with the figure of a model. Here he met the painter Joaquim Vayreda, who specialized in the landscape. Vayreda inspired Rusiñol to explore nature's representation, not to copy it, but to interpret it, as the painter from Olot does. It adopts this topic as opposed to historical themes, which at the time were fashionable