Mediterranean Sea
Sunyer i de Miró, Joaquim
Sitges, 1874 - 1956
Mediterranean Sea, c. 1910-1911
Signed lower right: ''Sunyer''
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Oil on canvas
85,5 x 130 cm
CTB.1996.57
Artwork history
-
Artist´s Collection.
-
Estate of the artist´s family (by descent).
-
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
-
-Maragall, J.: ”Impresión de la exposición Sunyer. A un amigo”. Museum. Barcelona, 1911, vol. I, n. 7, p. 259, lám.
-
-Castillo, A. del: ”Joaquín Sunyer en el primer centenario de su nacimiento”. Goya. Madrid, 1974, n. 122, p. 92.
-
-Benet, Rafael: Sunyer. Barcelona, Polígrafa, 1975, n. 103, pp. 58-49, 224, lám.
-
-Panyella, V.: ”El Noucentisme a Sitges. 3. Miquel Utrillo Joaquim Sunyer”. Miscel·lània Penedesenca. Sitges, 1982, n. 5 , p. 167.
-
-Suàrez, A., y Vidal, M.: ”L’oportuna revisió de l’obra de J. Sunyer”. Serra d’Or. Barcelona, 1983, n. 251, p. 59.
-
-Vallès i Rovira, I.: ”De l’ideari noucentista a la realitat sunyeriana. Una lectura de Mediterrània, Pastoral i Cala Forn”. V Congrés Espanyol d’Història de l’Art. Barcelona, 1984, p. 197, lám.
-
-Vallès i Rovira, I.: ”Sunyer i la recerca d’un ideal estilístic”. D’art. Barcelona, 1985, n. 11, p. 349-352.
-
-De Canaletto a Kandinsky. Obras maestras de la colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Llorens Serra, Tomàs; (ed.). [Exhib. Cat. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza]. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1996, n. 92, p. 234. [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona].
-
–Los 98′ ibéricos y el mar: Exposición Mundial de Lisboa 1998, Pabellón de España, August 3 -September 30. Bozal, Valeriano (ed.). [Exhib. Cat.]. Exposición Mundial de Lisboa 1998, Pabellón de España, 1998, p. 196, lám. [Sheet by Carmen Bernárdez Sanchís].
-
–Joaquim Sunyer. La construcción de una mirada. Mendoza, C. y Doñate, M. [Exhib. Cat.]. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – Madrid, Fundación Cultura Mapfre Vida, 1999, n. 45, p. 180, lám.
-
-Calvo Serraller, F.: Las cien mejores obras del siglo XX. Historia visual de la pintura española. Madrid, 2001, n. 10, p. 45, lám.
-
-Llorens, Tomás: “El ideal clásico en el arte moderno”. Madrid 2001-2002. pp. 32-201, cit. p. 96, n. 31, lám. p. 95.
-
-Llorens, Tomàs: Forma: el ideal clásico en el arte moderno. [Exhib. Cat. 2001-2002]. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2001.
-
-Rousseau, P.: ”Méditerranisme, la modernité tranquille”. Connaissance des arts. París, enero 2002, n. 170, p. 32-33.
-
-Jiménez-Blanco, María Dolores: “Sobre Gauguin y el Sintetismo en el arte español”. Madrid 2004-2005, pp. 86-103, cit. p. 102.
-
-Solana, Guillermo: Gauguin y los orígenes del simbolismo. [Exhib. Cat. 2004-2005]. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza – Fundación Caja Madrid, 2004.
-
–La tradición moderna en la Colección Carmen Thyssen. Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Miró, Málaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, 2011, p. 104, lám. p. 105. [Exhib. Cat.]
-
-Rusiñol, Monet, Gauguin, Sunyer. El paisaje en la Colección Carmen Thyssen, Gerona, CaixaForum; Tarragona, CaixaForum; Lérida, CaixaForum, 2012, n. 39, p. 132, lám. p. 133. [Exhib. Cat.]
-
-Brihuega, Jaime: “Radiografías de Julio Romero de Torres en su tetraedro. Clasicismo crepuscular. Ensimismamiento castizo. Efluvio morboso. Intuición de lo moderno”. Málaga 2013, pp. 37-63, lám. p. 48.
-
–Julio Romero de Torres. Entre el mito y la tradición. Moreno, Lourdes (ed.). Exhib. Cat.]. Málaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, 2013.
-
-Courbet, Van Gogh, Monet, Léger. Del paisaje naturalista a las vanguardias en la Colección Carmen Thyssen, Málaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, 2013, n. 29, p. 116, lám. p. 117. [Exhib. Cat.]
-
–L’ideal en el paisatge. De Meifrèn a Matisse i Gontxarova. Col·lecció Carmen Thyssen, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Espai Carmen Thyssen, 2014, p. 116, lám. p. 116. [Exhib. Cat.]
-
-Mediterráneo. Una Arcadia reinventada. De Signac a Picasso. Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, [Exhib. Cat.], 2018. Cat. 9, p. 61 & cover.
-
–The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García. Acquavella Galleries, 2018, New York. [Exhib. Cat. New York], 2018, p. 41 (photo).
-
-Redescubriendo el Mediterráneo. Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid. [Exhib. Cat.], 2018, Cat. 45, p.142 y p. 65 (frag.photo)
-
– Paraísos. Impresionismo europeo y americano. Colección Carmen-Thyssen Bornemisza. Centro Cultural Bancaja. Fundación Bancaja [Cat. Exp.], Fund. Bancaja, Valencia, 2020. p. 104-105 [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona]
-
-Pintar la luz. Maestros catalanes de la Colección Carmen Thyssen. Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga [Exhib. Cat.], Ed. Fundación Palacio de Villalón, Málaga, 2021. Cat. 26, p. 79.
-
Caminos de modernidad. 1860-1980. Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Centro Cultural Bancaja, Valencia [Exhib. Cat. Cur.: Moreno Molina, L.; Beltrán Alandete, M.]. Fundación Bancaja, Valencia, 2022. P. 142-143 [Sheet by Francesc Fontbona]
Expert report
Joaquim Sunyer’s Mediterranean Sea is one of the founding works of Noucentism in painting. When Sunyer had a solo exhibition in April of 1911 at the Fayans Catala Gallery in Barcelona with a group of sixty works -amongst which the one at hand was a very important work- the new airs introduced by the exhibition arrived at the right time to bring about a transformation in Catalan painting.
Eugeni d’Ors had already been speaking for some years of a new cultural movement, Noucentism, in his daily «Glosari» in the newspaper «La Veu de Catalunya», a movement which in respect to art did not define a specific style. Ors defended the work of the artists of his own generation and grouped them under the banner of what he called Noucentism, which until then was more of a wish than a real defined and differentiated aethetic form.
Within this context the death of Isidre Nonell in February 1911 left young Catalan painting without its most charismatic leader. At the same time, the personal version of Post-lmpressionism headed by the deceased painter instantly lost a great part of its force and representativeness. In this situation Sunyer’s exhibition was a revelation and the style he presented was exactly the example that the new Noucentist movement had been looking for.
As if he had followed the advice of Torres-Garcia, who for some time had been urging young Catalan artists to abandon the influence of the people from the North and turn their attention towards the Mediterranean, Sunyer -who until then had been living in Paris and painted in a Post-Impressionist style that was close to Bonnard’s- unexpectedly changed the focus of his work and introduced an idealized -solemn, Arcadian and simple to the point of naive- vision of the Mediterranean that was inspired by Cezanne.
This «naive» transformation was not understood all that well at the beginning. Other than from the hostile traditionalists there was resistence from within the new movement. Joaquim Folch i Torres, the single critic of the young Noucentism, devoted a long article to the exhibition, but he was surprized that Sunyer, whom he considered «so knowledgeable in matters of his profession,» would leave out «the means that in such a glorious way could express his feelings» in his attempt to return to the primary, and so as to confirm his opinion he did not doubt to venture that if Giotto «would have had more knowledge of his trade he would have put it all to the service of expressing the feelings he wanted to translate.»
Joan Maragall, the most regarded Catalan poet and intellectual at the time, greeted Sunyer’s contribution as the quintessence of the Catalan character, albeit with a certain amount of uncertainty because until then this great writer represented the Modernist world against which the new generation composed by Sunyer, Ors, Torres-Garcia and 50 many others (Casanovas, Clara, Nogues, etc.) were rising up.
Maragall really established the new Sunyer and centered his argument around the oil titled Pastoral (it is today kept at the Arxiu Maragall in Barcelona), which endowed this work with an added value that provoked its acquisition by Francesc Cambo, the most promissing politician in contemporary Catalonia.
Whatever Maragall said about Pastoral is also applicable to Mediterranean Sea, which due to the title the artist gave it is the most explicit symbol of the «Mediterranismo» that from then onwards 50 successfully vindicated the Noucentist school. The fact that, a little after its presentation in Barcelona and when the work was exhibited in Munich, Sunyer gave it the highest price amongst all the works shown and that he from then onwards always kept it in his private collection are beyond doubt clear indications of the work’s emotional weight for the artist.
Francesc Fontbona