TOMÁS MORAGAS Y TORRAS (Girona, 1837 - Barcelona,... Lot 2

TOMÁS MORAGAS Y TORRAS (Girona, 1837 - Barcelona, 1906). "The Renegade, 1890. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower left corner. It has restorations on the sky (left side). Missing in the frame. Measurements: 108 x 107 cm. In this battle scene, the Moroccan horsemen, wrapped in white tunics fluttering in the wind, appear highly idealised, as if they were characters from a legend. Although the artist may have taken the Spanish-Arab clashes that had taken place thirty years earlier as a reference, the painter does not intend to bear witness to a historical conflict but, on the contrary, to distil it into a romantic image with mythical overtones. The din of the battlefield caused by the galloping impetus of a large number of horsemen raises clouds of dust that contribute to plunging the scene into a reverie. Moragas was an Orientalist painter, fascinated by Maghrebi culture and types, and this is evident in the mystery that emanates from the figures. The equine anatomy has been magnificently resolved, as has the atmospheric perspective work, which is evident in the dynamic effect created by the advance of the warriors emerging from the horizon. In the foreground, a dying body lies on the ground. It probably identifies the "renegade" of the title (the one who changed sides). He has been defeated by a horseman whose black cloak distinguishes him from the rest of the Arabs. On the right, the enemy army can be seen in the distance. The chromatic iridescence and the shifts of light sublimate the landscape, while the atmospheric work does not neglect the individualised work of each of the figures, their anatomies, expressions and gestures. Tomás Moragas moved to Barcelona in his youth, where he began his training working in the workshop of Jose Pomar LLaró, who introduced him to the technique of engraving and goldsmithing. Later he continued his studies at the Escuela de La Lonja, in Barcelona, where he was taught by Claudio Lorenzale and Pablo Milá Fontanals and met Jose Tapiró Y Baró and Mariano Fortuny. He then moved to Rome, where he shared a studio with Mariano Fortuny. After almost a decade in the Italian capital he went to Paris in 1866, where he settled until his definitive return to Barcelona in 1876. In Spain he was an outstanding teacher, founding the School of Watercolourists and teaching at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Vilanova i la Geltrú, as well as his role as artistic advisor at the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona in 1888. Works by him can be found in the Museo del Prado, the MACBA, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña and the Museo de Historia de la Ciudad de Barcelona, among many others. His painting is notable for an aesthetic style that follows to some extent the aesthetics of Fortuny, with a theme of mansions, he practised a highly popular commercial style of painting, with representations of an orientalist character, among which the work in the Barcelona Museum of Modern Art is particularly noteworthy.