Modest Urgell

MODEST URGELL INGLADA (Barcelona, 1839 - 1919).
"Touch of prayer".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Attached certificate of Milagros Torres.
Measurements: 84 x 147 cm; 112 x 175 cm (frame).

This painting is fully inscribed in the poetic and aesthetic universe characteristic of Modest Urgell. The work represents a serene and solitary landscape, presided over by a stone hermitage with a small tower and wooden gate, located in the middle of a dark green and emerald field, surrounded by cypresses and lush vegetation. On the dirt road leading to the temple a solitary figure advances, a villager who goes to the evening prayer at the sound of the prayer bell.

The twilight sky, with its wide canopy and iridescent lights, envelops the scene in an atmosphere of silence and transcendence. That evening light, with its violet and bluish-gray reflections, gives the whole a meditative and almost mystical tone, so typical of Urgell's painting. The solitude of the human figure in front of the immensity of the landscape reinforces the feeling of transience and the idea of man before the mystery of the eternal.

This composition reflects the essential features of his mature style: sober but refined palette, balanced composition, and a lyrical sense of landscape that transcends mere naturalistic description. Urgell was a painter of silence, twilight and spaces where nature and faith merge.

It should be noted that there is a painting with a very similar theme and composition, also titled Toque de oración (Touch of Prayer), preserved in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), which confirms the importance and recurrence of this motif in his production.

Modest Urgell began his career as a theatrical actor, but the family's prohibition to follow that path led him to devote himself to painting. He studied at the Escuela de La Lonja in Barcelona, where he was a disciple of Ramón Martí Alsina, and later spent some time in Paris, where he met Gustave Courbet and became a follower of realism. During the sixties, his works were rejected in the official exhibitions of Madrid and Barcelona. In 1870 he moved to Olot, where he became acquainted with Joaquín Vayreda, creator of the local landscape school. From then on, Urgell decided to devote himself fully to landscape painting. His work will focus on solitary natures and seascapes, often starring hermitages and cemeteries, marked by a twilight, desolate and mysterious atmosphere. His landscapes have an atmosphere, a color and themes that deny the stereotype of the Mediterranean landscape, based on warm and friendly natures, of brilliant chromaticism, like open windows to the southern sensuality. Urgell is represented in the Prado Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, the Kunsthalle of Hamburg, the Víctor Balaguer Museum of Vilanova i la Geltrú, the Art Funds of the Caixa Sabadell and the Caixa d'Estalvis de Terrassa, the Dalí Museum in Figueras and the Provincial Museums of Girona, Palma de Mallorca and Lugo, among many other centers and institutions.