Borrel del Caso was a leading Barcelona painter of the same generation that produced other prominent Catalan artists including Tomás Moragas, Mariano Fortuny, Antoni Caba and Modest Urgell. Initially self-taught, he went on to study at the La Lonja art school in Barcelona under the tutelage of Claudio Lorenzale, Luis Rigalt and Pablo Milá y Fontanals. In 1868 he opened a very successful private drawing academy in Barcelona, to which he devoted much of his time and through which he exerted a considerable influence on successive generations of artists. As a result of this educational work, his artistic output was somewhat scanter than that of many of his contemporaries. We know from his notes that he produced more than three hundred paintings in twenty-seven years.
His two main reference points were his hometown of Puigcerdà and Barcelona. He spent time in Puigcerdá each year, and its landscapes and people inspired much of his work. His regular place of residence, however, was Barcelona, and most of his work was conditioned by the tastes and expectations of the local public, for whom he worked as an assiduous portrait painter. He also took part in many of the group exhibitions held in the city from 1866 on, such as those organized by La Lonja, the Society for the Promotion of Art Exhibitions and the Sala Parés. Beyond Catalonia, he also exhibited at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris and at several national exhibitions of fine arts.
Borrell was a realist painter in the style that dominated European art in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although he was a much sought-after portraitist, he also worked in a wide variety of other genres. He painted work for religious buildings (including the Church of San Esteban Castellar del Vallés), urban and natural landscapes (especially of La Cerdanya), genre scenes, academic studies, still-lifes, etc. However, his most characteristic works, and those that earned him a place in the painting scene of his time, were his trompes l'oeil, in which he used illusionist effects to confuse the painted with the real. His first began to devote himself to this genre in 1874, arising out of the popularity of his Escaping Criticism, shown at the Fine Arts Exhibition. Thenceforth, he not only repeated the same motif, but frequently played with the illusionistic possibilities of placing a character in a window (as in Peasant Woman with Bunch of Grapes), or frequently, leaning — or even stepping — out of a false frame. His characters were often invented, but on a number of occasions he used the device in his portraits, such as those of Mercé Sivatte and of his own wife, Teresa Pla (private collection), who is depicted with hands crossed, emerging from the edges of the frame. From 1901 onwards, a vascular disease forced him to give up painting.
Borrel del Caso was a leading Barcelona painter of the same generation that produced other prominent Catalan artists including Tomás Moragas, Mariano Fortuny, Antoni Caba and Modest Urgell. Initially self-taught, he went on to study at the La Lonja art school in Barcelona under the tutelage of Claudio Lorenzale, Luis Rigalt and Pablo Milá y Fontanals. In 1868 he opened a very successful private drawing academy in Barcelona, to which he devoted much of his time and through which he exerted a considerable influence on successive generations of artists. As a result of this educational work, his artistic output was somewhat scanter than that of many of his contemporaries. We know from his notes that he produced more than three hundred paintings in twenty-seven years.
His two main reference points were his hometown of Puigcerdà and Barcelona. He spent time in Puigcerdá each year, and its landscapes and people inspired much of his work. His regular place of residence, however, was Barcelona, and most of his work was conditioned by the tastes and expectations of the local public, for whom he worked as an assiduous portrait painter. He also took part in many of the group exhibitions held in the city from 1866 on, such as those organized by La Lonja, the Society for the Promotion of Art Exhibitions and the Sala Parés. Beyond Catalonia, he also exhibited at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris and at several national exhibitions of fine arts.
Borrell was a realist painter in the style that dominated European art in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although he was a much sought-after portraitist, he also worked in a wide variety of other genres. He painted work for religious buildings (including the Church of San Esteban Castellar del Vallés), urban and natural landscapes (especially of La Cerdanya), genre scenes, academic studies, still-lifes, etc. However, his most characteristic works, and those that earned him a place in the painting scene of his time, were his trompes l'oeil, in which he used illusionist effects to confuse the painted with the real. His first began to devote himself to this genre in 1874, arising out of the popularity of his Escaping Criticism, shown at the Fine Arts Exhibition. Thenceforth, he not only repeated the same motif, but frequently played with the illusionistic possibilities of placing a character in a window (as in Peasant Woman with Bunch of Grapes), or frequently, leaning — or even stepping — out of a false frame. His characters were often invented, but on a number of occasions he used the device in his portraits, such as those of Mercé Sivatte and of his own wife, Teresa Pla (private collection), who is depicted with hands crossed, emerging from the edges of the frame. From 1901 onwards, a vascular disease forced him to give up painting.