Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Paisaje (Camí antic de Vilanova) [Landscape (Old Vilanova Road)]

Image caption
RAMÓN CASAS I CARBÓ

Paisaje (Camí antic de Vilanova) [Landscape (Old Vilanova Road)]

  • 1890
  • Oil on canvas
  • 109 x 147 cm
  • Cat. P_286
  • Acquired in 1982
By:
Isabel Tejeda

Ramón Casas's exceptional work features portraits and scenes of everyday urban life, mainly reflecting his cosmopolitan and bohemian life in Paris and Barcelona — the two cities where he lived the longest. His work reflects the changing times in which he lived. The tone is not always optimistic, and many of his paintings contain an element of criticism. The painting in the Banco de España Collection, a Catalan landscape (as stated on the back of the canvas), is particularly interesting. It is modern, not only in its execution — which combines naturalistic formulas with hints of impressionism — but also in its subject matter, a rural setting that transformed by progress and modernity. It was painted at the highpoint of the renaissance in Catalan painting, in 1890, a year that was to be crucial for the painter's career. With Santiago Rusiñol and the sculptor Enric Clarasó, Casas staged a controversial exhibition at the Sala Parés in Barcelona. It was a declaration of intent. The show was a commercial failure, but it represented a direct challenge to the more conservative sectors, which were accustomed to pleasant, anecdotal pictures and opposed to any renovation of the artistic language.

Ramon Casas's Old Vilanova Road depicts a number of symptoms of the modern age. Running parallel to the old, solitary road (a cart track) are the railway tracks on one side, and on the other, the telegraph poles. The space is quite bare, and is deliberately shown without any subjects that might bring an anecdotic touch to the painting. Casas is precise in his approach; he shows us what he sees. The Mediterranean landscape, with its low scrub, has been brutally ripped apart by the teeth of a shovel, to provide a home for the future. This painting is nothing short of a manifesto.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Julián Gállego Serrano, María José Alonso
Ramón Casas i Carbó
Barcelona 1866 - Barcelona 1932

Casas i Carbó was born into a wealthy family. He received his first artistic training from Juan Vicens, before moving to Paris, where he studied under Carolus-Duran and came into contact with the Impressionists, particularly Manet, whom he admired. He moved back to Spain but returned to Paris again in 1890. He struck up a friendship with Miquel Utrillo and Santiago Rusiñol, with whom he exhibited (with Clarassó) at the Sala Parés almost every year. The three together offered a perfect representation of Catalan art at this time. His pictures of the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Gallete, which show a clear affinity with Toulouse-Lautrec, all date from this period. In 1892, he won the medal for third prize at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 1894 he returned once more to Spain. The themes of his pictures then changed, reflecting the turbulent events of the time. They include Garrotte and The Charge (Medal for First Prize at the National Exhibition of 1904), and other more optimistic works, such as Evening Dance, where he makes extensive use of diffuse light and shades of grey. A superb draughtsman, he made pencil and pastel portraits of some of the leading lights of the cultural and aristocratic life of the 1900s, of which 216 are now preserved in the Museum of Barcelona. Casas i Carbó designed posters for El Mono anisette, Boer paper and París cigarettes. He won a number of important awards at international competitions in Berlin, Munich, Vienna and Barcelona. He had a solo exhibition at the Layetanas Galleries in 1916 and a tribute exhibition at the Círculo Artístico in Barcelona (1930). He founded the short-lived magazines Pèl & Ploma and Forma and was a regular guest at the soirées at the Els Quatre Cats café in Barcelona.

 
«Catalan modernism. Enthusiasm», Fundación Santander Central Hispano (Madrid, 2000). «Ramon Casas. The Painter of Modernism», Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, 2001). «Gold Rush. Scenes of the New Middle Classes», CaixaForum (Girona, 2011). «Gold Rush. Scenes of the New Middle Classes», CaixaForum (Tarragona, 2011). «Casas-Rusiñol. Two modernist visions», Museo Carmen Thyssen (Malaga, 2014-2015). «Horizonte y límite. Visiones del paisaje», CaixaForum (Valencia, 2022-2023).
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez & Julián Gállego Banco de España. Colección de pintura, Madrid, Banco de España, 1985. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Julián Gállego & María José Alonso Colección de pintura del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1988. Vv.Aa. El modernismo catalán. Un entusiasmo, Madrid, Fundación Santander Central Hispano, 2000. Mercé Doñate and Cristina Mendoza Ramón Casas. El pintor del Modernismo, Barcel, MNAC y Mapfre Vida, 2001. Vv.Aa. Casas - Rusiñol. Dos visiones modernistas, Malaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, 2014. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 1.