Ramon Casas

RAMÓN CASAS CARBÓ (Barcelona, 1866 - 1932).
"Júlia Peraire. First version of "La Sargantain", c. 1906.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner to later by the artist "R. Casas 1910".
Attached report and certificate issued by Adrià Codina.
Measurements: 92 x 65 cm; 113 x 85,5 x 5 cm (frame).

Few figures in the history of Catalan art possess the gravitational force of Júlia Peraire, whose presence in this 1910 canvas not only consolidates her role as the backbone of Ramón Casas's work, but also defines the technical and expressive zenith of his pictorial maturity. Far from the commissioned portrait or social representation, Casas here places Júlia as the absolute iconographic subject, articulating an image of silent authority and spatial dominance.
Formally, the work is sustained by a fully mature economy of means and chromatic solidity. The saturated green of the dress acts as the structural axis of the composition, while the black of the bullfighter frames the figure and projects the flesh tones towards the foreground with remarkable plastic efficiency. In contrast to the more restrained linear drawing of his bourgeois portraits, Casas adopts a free and sketchy brushstroke, especially visible in the background and in the hands, where the stain acquires expressive autonomy and prioritizes atmosphere, volume and presence.
Although the artist reduces the electric tension and explicit challenge present in La Sargantain (1907), the figure maintains an absolutely modern pose and an imposing presence. If in the 1907 work Julia was captured with a feline aggressiveness and an almost violent tension, here that force is transmuted into a suggestive security and an attitude of sovereignty over the space. The model no longer needs direct and defiant eye contact to dominate the scene; her posture, of a studied laxity, projects a sophistication that oscillates between popular typism and urban avant-garde.
The importance of Julia in Casas's production lies in this capacity for iconographic evolution: she allows the painter to move from realism of character towards a mature modernism, where the female figure becomes a symbol of timeless elegance. Compared to La Sargantain, this canvas demonstrates that the strength of the muse has not diminished, but has been institutionalized, transforming the initial impulse into a monumental presence that defines the aesthetic canon of Barcelona at the beginning of the century.

A leading figure of modernism and one of the most internationally renowned Spanish artists of his time, Ramón Casas developed a decisive career between Barcelona and Paris, with an early presence at the Salon des Champs Elysées. His work is today part of the main public collections -Museo del Prado, MNAC, Museo Reina Sofía, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, among others-, confirming his position as an essential reference of modern portraiture and Spanish art collecting between the centuries.