CERCLE 9

W ith the title Cusachs: Militia and Art , the Min- istry of Defense has organised and brought to Barcelona the work of the great painter José Cusachs, an artist as extraordinary as he is unknown to the general public. The exhibition has been considered somewhat better contextualised by being exhibited in the Museum of Modernism of Barcelona, a place that captures much of the essence of a splendid period that brought in the Modernista movement which started in Barcelona at the end of the 19th century. The Reial Cercle Artístic de Barcelona alsowants to con- tribute to the dissemination of the work of an extraor- dinary Catalan artist, whose contribution to historical, military and, of course, artistic heritage has been quite remarkable. His work, exquisite and full of sensitivity, was especially well received not only by many other artists of the period, but also especially by a minori- ty audience of refined taste, which is why much of his work remains in private hands. The exhibition, which will remain open to the public until September, shows the largest collection of works by the Catalan artist by an institution. There is a total of seventy-one pieces, practically the en- tirety of the painter's work comes from the collections owned by the Ministry of Defense, along with three works donated by the National Art Museum of Catalo- nia (MNAC) and one more from the host museum. The rest of Cusachs's work belongs to private collections considering that he was a painter highly valued by the Catalan high bourgeoisie, for whom the equestrian and military themes conferred status, and were a clear demonstration of the most exquisite of tastes. The exhibition covers the military career of the great Catalan painter José Cusachs y Cusachs, who was born in Montpellier in 1851 and died in Barcelona, in 1908, as a result of a heart condition. He entered the Military Artillery Academy in Segovia in 1865 and left the army definitively in 1882 to dedicate himself completely to art. From about 1868, Cusachs lived through the turbulent history of a Spain shaken by a great political maelstrom that he got to know very closely, given his military connections. As the great draughtsman he was, he was a caricaturist, illustrator and graphic chronicler for the Spanish army. As you might expect, he specialised in military themes with a devotion to the cavalry, given his passion for horses, but he also stood out as a portraitist, immortalising such important figures as King Alfonso XIII, General Prim or the Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. Although JOSEP CUSACHS Between the historical and the human Militia and Art Sargento de húsares de la Princesa. José Cusachs, 1884. Inspección General del Ejército, Barcelona.