JOSÉ MONGRELL TORRENT (Valencia, 1870 - Barcelona, 1937).
"Marina".
Oil on canvas.
Signed on the left side.
Measurements: 50 x 70 cm; 81,5 x 102 cm (frame).
The influence of his mentor Joaquín Sorolla can be appreciated in this magnificent painting by José Mongrell, but what is striking is a way of resolving the composition in which he himself was a master: with audacity, Mongrell has superimposed different levels of reality, from the fishermen's wives waiting in the foreground for their husbands to the bathers in the background, passing through the high society lady who enjoys a pleasant summer day. The framing is almost photographic, as it cuts out the boat on which the young woman is leaning with her basket, waiting to fill it with fish. On the left, the oxen can be glimpsed, ready to load the boats that are to dock on the coast. Multiple scenes are interwoven in the painting, worked with different levels of chromatic and luminous definition, in a faithful atmospheric rendering of the different planes. Valencian luminism reaches the highest levels here.
José Mongrell studied at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he was a disciple of Ignacio Pinazo and Joaquín Sorolla. He achieved artistic renown thanks to his participation in numerous competitions and exhibitions in Madrid and Barcelona. In 1897 he produced, with great success, the bullfighting poster for the Feria de San Jaime in Valencia, and in fact his poster for the Valencia July Fair of 1912 was reissued in 1971 on the occasion of the centenary of these festivities. He obtained a teaching post at the San Jorge School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he lived for the rest of his life. Of particular note from this period is the work he did for the Palace of the Generalitat de Catalunya, in charge of the Diputació de Barcelona, as well as his portrait of King Alfonso XIII. He also produced mosaics in the Art Nouveau style, such as those for the great arch of the Mercado de Colón and the façade of the Estación del Norte, both in Barcelona. Mongrell devoted himself to genre scenes, portraits and landscapes, and was a master of capturing the instant, giving his scenes vitality and dynamism through bright, naturalistic colours and light. Traditionally pigeonholed as a disciple of Sorolla, Mongrell, however, only learned from the master that which helped him to extend his art. The painter developed his work somewhere between regionalism and modernism, but a certain French-influenced symbolism can also be seen in his work. In fact, Mongrell was characterised by his emphasis on content, attributing to the image a meaning that went beyond pure appearance. At a time when grand, idealistic and dramatic historical compositions prevailed, Mongrell developed a style of painting concerned with depicting the past and present from an everyday, gentle and picturesque perspective, generally far removed from the grandiloquence and theatricality of academic history painting. Despite his technical mastery, Mongrell did not, like others, fall into a refined mannerism at the service of an inconsequential subject matter, but developed a fully personal language, characterised by its dynamism and expressive freedom. José Mongrell is currently represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes San Pío V and the Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de Artes Suntuarias González Martí in Valencia, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Asturias, Badajoz and Pontevedra, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Museo de La Habana and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, among others.