From the article -own translation–by Nèstor Luján (Mataró, 1922-Barcelona, 1995) published in Destination (2-XI-1974) on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Marià Fortuny (Reus, 1838-Rome, 1874). Tomorrow, November 21st, is the 150th anniversary of who was one of the most eminent Catalan artists of the 19th century. In addition to his virtuosity as a painter, Fortuny also excelled as a draftsman and engraver.
On November 21, 1874, Marià Fortuny died, aged 36, in her study in Rome. He had suffered an attack of malaria, the pernicious fever of the Roman marshes, and when the doctors who were in consultation wanted to put him in a supine position he suffered a stomach hemorrhage which they could not stop in any way. (…) Orphaned by his mother, Fortuny had been educated by his grandfather, who always encouraged his artistic vocation. (…) He was an old man who enjoyed a will and an optimism that stood the test of time. On September 16, 1852, grandfather and grandson left Reus walking together towards Barcelona. It was explained by the painter Francesc Tapiró, who was a great friend of the Fortunys: “The grandfather, with a light luggage on his back, holding the boy’s hand, and the boy, with the folder of drawings under his arm, both outlined in the backlight of the Camp landscape, on the way to Barcelona, haloed by the light of an illusion”. (…) Quite the opposite of most painters of the 19th century, Fortuny knew the most absolute success in his youth. One of them was the one in his painting The Vicar. He had begun it in 1868 in Madrid, continued it in Rome and finished it in Paris in 1870. The framework of the work is not that of any specific vicarage: the grid is that of the cathedral of Granada and several elements are of several churches in Rome. The female figures are portraits: the bride is the painter’s wife, Cecilia de Madrazo, and the young women accompanying her, her sister Isabel, Princess Colonna and Malvina Colomer. The groom is his brother-in-law Raimundo. (…) The Vicar it represents the peak of Fortuny’s work, the most exacerbated virtuosity of his Enlightenment. It almost reaches the character of an informalist painting in the sensual and chromatic vibration of its deliberate and masterful brushwork. However, the anecdote weighs so much that it is very difficult to imagine Fortuny detaching himself from all his work and entering fully into the impressionist mentality, although in his last works he left the clear mark of a receptive sensitivity to impressionism. (…) In “La Vicaria” there is all the fantastic freedom of the great Catalan painter. (…) One of the last articles that Théophile Gautier wrote is the review of “La Vicaria” that he published in Official Journal. I finish this article with some enthusiastic concepts from Gautier: “What harmony in Fortuny’s chromatic boldness in this painting. A chromaticism that is not afraid to create color or adopt those that we have only seen in the Japanese palette. Exotic, rare tones within the range of pearl gray and linked with neutrals, earthy and toasted that intermingle in delicate combinations. What a light and spiritual brushwork, expressive! What a science of drawing in these tiny figures in the painting, so elegantly raised with such natural movements and attitudes and positions and such expressive gestures!”
Source: www.ara.cat
