Trained at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona, he alternated his artistic studies with philosophy, although he finally abandoned formal education to perfect himself as a self-taught artist. He travelled to Paris for the first time in 1848 and in 1852 and, back in Barcelona, took up the post of lecturer in Line Drawing at the Lonja. Two years later he took the chair of figure drawing at that school. In addition to Paris, where he would return on other occasions, Martí Alsina visited Belgium and Holland, where he was impressed by the work of Rembrandt.
Martí Alsina’s abundant output encompassed almost all the academic genres of the 19th century, although he was most highly regarded as a painter of landscapes and urban views.