JOSÉ MARÍA SERT (Barcelona, 1874 - 1945)."Calvari". Sketch for the epistle aisle in Vic Cathedral,

JOSÉ MARÍA SERT (Barcelona, 1874 - 1945).
"Calvari". Sketch for the epistle aisle in Vic Cathedral, 1925-1927.
Mixed media on canvas.
Attached Intitut Amatller d'art hispànic.
Measurements: 120 x 120 cm; 140 X 140 cm (frame).
-Bibliography:
-Catàleg de l'exposició José María Sert; 1874-1945. (palacio de Velázquez; Parque del Retiro, Madrid, 27 Oct, 1987 - 3 Jan. 1988) Ministry of Culture Directorate General of Fine Arts and Archives, National Exhibition Centre.
-Eduard JUNYENT; La decoració pictórica de la Catedral de Vich. Editorial Seráfica; Vic, 1936.
-Alberto del CASTILLO; José María Sert, His life and work, Editorial Argos, Barcelona, 1947 (pp. 149 and 152, lams. 93 and 94).
Although this work was commissioned in 1900, Sert did not present the first sketches until six years later, busy with the numerous orders he received from the aristocrats of the time. The First World War interrupted the work and once it was resumed, Sert felt he had to modify the approach, eliminating colour and therefore rethinking the perspectives in order to obtain depth. It was completed in 1929, but only seven years later it was destroyed. Shocked, Sert accepted the restoration of the cathedral, basing it this time on a set of bas-reliefs which he did not complete until the year of his death.José María Sert was one of the most sought-after and controversial painters of his time and one of the best Spanish muralists. Heir to the Catalan Renaixença and trained as a modernist, he developed a pictorial style outside the stylistic trends of his time. These characteristics make him a renovator of mural painting and a prolific artist who painted more than seven thousand square metres of cathedrals, palaces, great halls, private residences and town halls in various cities, but without doubt the work that was most present throughout his life was the decoration of Vic Cathedral.
Trained with Benito Mercadé and Pere Borrell, Sert was a member of the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc, and later a disciple of A. de Riquer. In 1900 Torras i Bages commissioned him to paint a large mural decoration for Vic Cathedral, of which he presented sketches and preparatory canvases in 1905 and 1907 in Barcelona and Paris, of which this piece is an example. Through his exhibitions abroad, he soon acquired extraordinary prestige among the French and English aristocracy, for whom he produced sumptuous decorations. In 1908 he decorated the Sala de los Pasos Perdidos of the Palace of Justice in Barcelona, and in 1910 he presented at the Salon d'Automne in Paris the mural decoration of the ballroom of the Marquis of Alella (Barcelona) and decorated the music room of the Princess of Polignac in Paris. Two years later he exhibited an important group of works at the Salon in the French capital. In the following years he worked for Queen Victoria Eugenia (Santander) and for Robert Rotschild (Chantilly), and had solo exhibitions in London at the Agnew Gallery. In 1920 he married Maria Godebska, "Misia", a muse of the Parisian artistic scene, in Paris. He painted new murals for important houses in Park Lane (England), Buenos Aires, Palm Beach and Paris, and in 1926 he made, to great expectation, an exhibition of his works for the cathedral of Vic in the Jeu de Paume in Paris. In 1927, with the support of his friend and patron Francesc Cambó, he completed the main part of the cathedral's decoration, which was completed with the construction of the lunettes between 1928 and 1929. In 1930 he was made a member of the Academy of San Fernando, and in the following years he worked all over the world, painting important murals such as those in the Waldorf Astoria in New York, the chapel of the Palacio de Liria in Madrid and the Council Chamber of the League of Nations in Geneva. He was the most eminent decorative painter of his time, and his style was characterised by great imagination in the service of a rhetorical language influenced by Orientalism.