Majorca - Pere Ysern Y Alié (1875-1946)

An oil on canvas measuring 60X50 cm (without the gilded frame) representing rocks in Majorca signed lower right.

Pere Ysern i Alié is a Catalan painter. He was born during the full effervescence of Catalonia, economic, cultural, political. He lived most of his life in Paris, where he discovered Impressionism. His painting owes a lot to the French impressionists, he was able to assimilate the spirit of the art of that time. Then on April 3, 1899, with his comrades from the Academy Borrell, Pidelaserra and Fontbona, he left for Paris, at a time when it was a moment of great splendor magnified by the celebration of its universal exhibition, with the Eiffel Tower. which is the symbol of European change. He arrives in Paris with different aesthetic opinions and the appearance of another way of thinking specific to the old continent. In the field of art, this will result in a reaction against the idealism of the liberal empire, which is made around Gustave Courbet, as well as the school of Barbizon with Corot, Pissarro and Louis Dauvigny... This foundation of the landscape school will have profound repercussions on Catalan society, on artistic change. It is a France full of vitality and enriched by the industrial revolution that Pere Ysern i Alié found when arriving there. He will discover there the wall decorations of the Pantheon of Puvis de Chavannes, but also the Impressionists at the Luxembourg Museum, it is moreover in this museum that he will be for the first time confronted with the Impressionist phenomenon; he learned there that the forms are what one believes to see: an appearance, and that it is necessary to abandon the drawing of the outline by substituting it by fragmented keys; he studied the great impressionists, such as Monet, Bazille, Sisley and Pissarro. He is immersed in Parisian life and frequents the Catalan circle who resided in Paris and rubbed shoulders with the famous Parisian cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge, owned by the Catalan Josep Oller, there he rubbed shoulders with Toulouse-Lautrec. He will return to Barcelona for a short time] in 1904, but his painting is not appreciated as he thinks it deserves, so this will confirm his residence in Paris, where he becomes a regular at the Salon des Indépendants. Nevertheless, the First World War will precipitate a change in the city of Paris, the Moulin Rouge is closed for example, Montmartre loses its animation (the 1915 fire at the Moulin Rouge will affect Pere Ysern i Alié, who nevertheless remains faithful in Montmartre).Montparnasse will become the new neighborhood where you should be. But Father Ysern i Alié will continue to paint, under cover of new aesthetic movements and remains as faithful as ever to cafes and cabarets. Once the war is over, an optimistic revival will win Paris with the Roaring Twenties (the 1920s) which will be marked by the North American presence, foxtrot and jazz.