Julio Romero de Torres (Córdoba, 1874 – 1930) Easter Week. Portrait of Raquel Meller 1910 Oil and tempera on canvas 179 x 117 cm The son of Rafael Romero Barros, a painter and the director of the Museo Provincial in Córdoba, and Rosario de Torres Delgado, Julio Romero de Torres was introduced to the arts at a young age. While attending school at the Instituto Góngora, 1 at the age of ten he enrolled at the city’s music conservatory to study theory. At the same time he started to acquire a knowledge of drawing and painting from his father, a painter affiliated with the Romantic tradition and with that of picturesque genre painting, who provided his son with the technical basis required to become a painter. 2 One of Romero de Torres’s earliest documented works is Look how pretty she was, which he presented at the National Fine Arts Exhibition in 1895, earning a precocious honorary mention. 3 Following this success in Madrid he began to take an active role in the cultural life of his native Córdoba, attending the Academia de Ciencias, Bellas Letras and Nobles Arts (of which Teodomiro 1 Sánchez Trigueros, J. A.: Concha Barrios y la pintura española del S.XIX. Diez años de exposiciones: 1978-1988, Galería Concha Barrios, Madrid, 1988, unpaginated. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. Ramírez de Arellano was president), the Ateneo and the Sociedad Ecónomica de Amigos del País. On 14 August 1902 Romero de Torres was made a tenured professor to the Chair of Colour, Drawing and Copying at the Fine Arts School in Córdoba, a position that came to an end on 12 September when the school that his father had founded in the previous century closed down. His teaching activities continued in 1903 when he was appointed associate professor at the Higher School of Industrial Arts directed by Mateo Inurria. In Madrid, Romero de Torres broadened his circle of friends when he met leading intellectuals of the day, associating with literary figures such as Ramón del Valle Inclán 4 and Manuel Machado. In the Spanish capital the artist regularly participated in the informal debates organised by Valle Inclán at the café on calle Arenal, also attended by painters such as Ignacio Zuloaga, Ricardo Baroja, José Gutiérrez Solana, Rafael de Penagos, Anselmo Miguel Nieto and Ángel Vivanco. During this period Romero de Torres travelled around France, England, Italy, Switzerland, the Low Countries and Morocco. The year 1906 marked a before and after in the artist’s career through his participation in the National Fine Arts Exhibition with the work Vividoras del Amor [Living off Love]. The painting, which depicts the interior of a brothel, provoked a tremendous scandal among the public and critics of the day and was rejected by the exhibition’s jury, which described it as immoral. 5 In the present day and with the benefit of hindsight that allows for a clearer perspective, this reception clearly indicates Romero de Torres’s modernity and transgressive approach as an artist. So much so that some experts, such as Pérez Rojas, have encountered a parallel between Vividoras del Amor and Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon painted the following year. 6 In 1907 the artist took part in the Círculo de Bellas Artes Exhibition alongside some of the above-mentioned artists, presenting the paintings Blessing, Carmen 4 The film La malcasada (1926) by Francisco Gómez Hidalgo is revealing with regard to the close friendship between Julio Romero de Torres and Ramón María del Valle Inclán. The artist appears in his studio from minute 39.02 onwards, seen alongside the writer and the protagonist. 5 Sánchez Trigueros, J. A.: Concha Barrios y la pintura española del S.XIX, op. cit. 6 Pérez Rojas, F. J.: “Dos historias casi paralelas. Vividoras del amor y Les desmoiselles d’ Avignon” in J. Brihuega et al.: Julio Romero de Torres. Símbolo, materia y obsesión. Madrid, TF, 2003, pp. 123-156. and Fuensanta. 7 In 1910, the year the present portrait was painted, he participated in the International Exhibitions of Spanish Painting held in Buenos Aires 8 and Santiago de Chile. Ramón del Valle Inclán gave a series of lectures in Buenos Aires in which he presented Romero de Torres as Spain’s most important painter. In December 1912, following his return to Spain, he was elected a full academician of the Academy of Sciences, Fine Arts and Letters of Córdoba. 9 The year 1913 was particularly important with regard to the artist’s contacts with the leading figures in the Spanish art world of the day. During that year Romero de Torres regularly participated in the debates of the conversation group known as the “Sacred Crypt of the Pombo Café”, led by Ramón Gómez de la Serna. 10 This offered a space for the exchange of ideas and influences and other participants included the Zubiaurre brothers, Victorio Macho, Francisco Iturrino, Solana, Santiago Rusiñol and Ramiro de Maeztu. That same year Romero de Torres painted Sin, 11 a work with clear references to Velázquez’s Venus with a Mirror (The Rokeby Venus) and with which he reached artistic maturity, offering a synthesis of influences from French Symbolism, the Italian Renaissance and his native Andalusian culture that together configured his particular style. He also painted the celebrated bullfighter Juan Belmonte and took an active part in the organisation of the tribute to him four months before Belmonte became a fully-fledged professional. In 1914, on the outbreak of World War I, Romero de Torres signed a manifesto issued by Spanish intellectuals in defence of spiritual values and in support of the Allied cause. On 18 December 1922 the City Council of Córdoba made the artist an Honorary Citizen and an exhibition of his work opened at the Círculo Mercantil. It was in this second decade of the 20th century that Romero de Torres was most active in poster design, creating iconic images for the Cruz-Conde wineries and the Unión Española de Explosivos. 7 Sánchez Trigueros, J.A.: Concha Barrios y la pintura española del S.XIX, op. cit. 8 Pérez de Ayala, R.: “Romero de Torres en la Argentina” in Ramón Pérez de Ayala y las artes plásticas, exhib. cat., Granada, Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta, 1991, pp. 222-225. 9 Martín Bourgon, M. T: “Romero de Torres, Julio” in Enciclopedia, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Consulted on 04/06/2020. 10 Ibid., (1988). 11 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), inv. no. AS00193. In 1926 Romero de Torres’s studio on calle Pelayo became a gathering place for friends, intellectuals and the numerous and diverse artists whom he had met over the years. In 1928 he painted The Virgin of the Lanterns, a work installed in the altarpiece on the north façade of the Cathedral-Mosque in Córdoba and one that would become a symbol of the artist’s native city. Julio Romero de Torres died on 10 May 1930 in his house on the Plaza del Potro in Córdoba as a result of liver and lung disease. His widow and children donated to the city the works that the artist had presented at the Ibero-American Exhibition held in Seville in 1929 as the basis for the creation of a future museum in his memory. This project became a reality in 1936 with the opening of the Museo Julio Romero de Torres in Córdoba, 12 located in the former Hospital de la Caridad, which also houses the city’s Fine Arts Museum. The present interesting portrait depicts the celebrated popular singer Raquel Meller (fig. 1). She is shown in the dress traditionally worn by Spanish women in Easter week, with a long black dress, a decorative hair comb and a lace mantilla, elements that allow the artist to focus on the interplay of transparent effects with great virtuosity. From a humble family, Raquel Meller (1888-1962) made her debut as a singer and actress in 1907 in various theatres in Barcelona and Madrid. Her first successes date from the following decade when she was painted by Romero de Torres, followed by other painters including Sorolla (fig. 2). 13 After she appeared in the film The harlequins of silk and gold (1919) Meller achieved unprecedented international fame which resulted in her moving to Paris and then to Hollywood where she made various films. Famous within her musical repertoire were her renditions of Water you don’t need to drink and Heard-hearted composed by Martínez Abades; The Keepsake by Oliveros, Castellvi and Padilla; and The Violet Seller by Montesino and Padilla. Another portrait of Raquel Meller by Romero de Torres of three years later depicts her with an erotic intent that offers a complete contrast to the present work. This is 12 The Museo Julio Romero de Torres de Córdoba was declared a Monument of National Cultural Interest in 1962. 13 Museo Sorolla (Madrid), inv. no. MSM-01224. the painting entitled The Venus of Poetry in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbo (fig. 3). 14 Meller is shown lightly covered with the same mantilla but it now explicitly reveals her naked body. In that double portrait she is accompanied by her husband, the Guatemalan writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo. Reference bibliography: - Calvo Serraller, F.: “La hora de iluminar lo negro: tientos sobre Julio Romero de Torres” en Julio Romero de Torres (1874-1930), exhib. Cat., Madrid, Fundación Cultural Mapfre Vida, 1993. - García de la Torre, F.: Julio Romero de Torres, pintor (1874-1930), Arco/Libros, Madrid. - Martín Bourgon, M.T: “Romero de Torres, Julio” in Enciclopedia, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Consulted on 04/06/2020. - Pérez de Ayala, R.: “Julio Romero de Torres pintor” en Ramón Pérez de Ayala y las artes plásticas, exhib.