Corpus: Exit of The Corpus Christi Procession Leaving Santa Maria del Mar
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| Ramon Casas,Corpus,: Exit of the Corpus Christi Procession Leaving Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona, MNAC |
This painting by Ramón Casas was exhibited at the at the IV Exhibition of Fine Arts and Artistic Industries at the Palace of Fine Arts in Barcelona. It won a gold medal, and was immediately purchased for Barcelona's Municipal Museum, and is now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.
It depicts a festive scene of the Corpus Christi procession leaving Barcelona's iconic church of Santa Maria del Mar. Part of the procession is already out of the picture, but a marcher is visible carrying a banner at center left, with other members of the parade leaving to go up the street in front of him. Behind, the rest of the parade waits to depart at the church door. This is a group of mostly secular marchers and a bevy of young girls in white, who have just taken their first communion. In the foreground at right, is a group of spectators seen from behind. Other viewers stand at left, while more merge to the right with the departing paraders, and even more can be seen from the multi-hued bunting-decorated balconies in the background. Mounted police in festive uniforms make space for the parade.
Everybody is milling around the festive scene. Though there are patches of empty street here as in Garrote Vil, here they wind diagonally as a river, adding to the composition's rhythm Though most of the coloring is neutral grays, blacks and whites, there are accents of bright color. A group of turquoise-uniformed officials, as well as colored hats among the spectators, the bright bunting and the red blouse of a mother with her chubby daughter who views the parade from the extreme right, as well as the billowing plumes of the policemen lend an air of pleasant excitement. In Casas' usual technique, a few details are picked out, but the rest is an impressionistic freely brushed-on composition. The faces of the little girls are pink blobs among their white veils.
This painting could pass as simply a slice of late 19th-century Barcelona life. The Corpus Christi processions in Barcelona and other Catalan towns were famous, and besides the
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| Arcadi Mas i Fontevila, Corpus Christi Procession, Sitges, Maricel Museum |
But there is a far more sinister agenda to Casas' painting, because by the time he completed and exhibited it, Barcelona's Corpus Christi Procession had been suspended for two years. That's because the 1896 parade was blasted by a terrorist bomb, as it was returning to its church. Six people were killed, including two children, and over forty injured.
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| The Corpus Bombing: Contemporary Engraving |
During the 1890's, Barcelona had experienced not only labor unrest, but a series of bombings carried out by Anarchists. Two had occurred in 1893, one targeting a general, the other the bourgeoisie as they were attending an opera at the Liceu Theater. In the first two cases, the perpetrators were speedily arrested and executed, the first by a firing squad at the prison at Montjüic, the second, the Liceu bomber Santiago Salvador, publicly by garrote at the Pati dels Corders.
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| Corpus Christi Parade, 2016 |
The official reaction to this third bombing was itself violent. The actual deed was committed by a French anarchist, but the government decided to crack down on local Anarchists too: arrests, imprisonments, five executions by firing squad and deportations followed. Labor Setmana Tràgica(Tragic Week) in 1909. The Corpus Christi festival would not resume until the Franco regime reinstated it in 1941 (it continues today in a more contemporary form in both Barcelona and Sitges, as well as other towns).
unrest, anarchism and uprisings would continue in Barcelona, culminating in the
Carmen Lord's study of Ramon Cases includes several preparatory sketches, so he certainly had this painting in mind for a time beforehand, much as he had for Garrote Vil. But what is interesting is that he makes some deliberate artistic choices that depart from the actual event: To begin with, the bombing took place at nine in the evening, and the painting certainly implies a full daylight hour. In addition, the actual procession began at Barcelona's Cathedral, and after winding through neighborhood streets, ended at Santa María del Mar, rather than heading out from it. The bombing actually took place on the street approaching the church (Carrer dels Canvis Nous) to its right, and here the procession appears to be heading off to the left (Carrer de l'Argenteria).
But artistic notwithstanding, in Casas' painting, the facade of Santa Maria del Mar is readily identifiable, and to spectators at the exhibition this painting would have had immediate associations, and understood the subtlety of its message.
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| Southerland Springs First Baptist Church on an ordinary Sunday |
There is a Part III. It will be posted soon.
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Carmen Lord, Point and Counterpoint: Ramon Casas in Paris and Barcelona,1866-1908. This is her doctoral dissertation from the University of Michigan (1995) available online through Proquest.
An historical analysis of the Corpus Christi bombing can be found at an excerpt from Temma Kaplin. Red City, Blue Period: Social Movements in Picasso's Barcelona. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992:
The photo of the present-day Corpus Christi procession is by Margaret Coad, and is at:
https://margaretcoad.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/fiesta-del-corpus-the-feast-of-corpus-christi/
A link to a You Tube of an Ordinary Sunday at Southerland Springs First Baptist Church:https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/First-Baptist-Church-YouTube-12335491.php
A link to a You Tube of an Ordinary Sunday at Southerland Springs First Baptist Church:https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/First-Baptist-Church-YouTube-12335491.php
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