An Eye-Pleasing Show at the State Art Museum in Orizaba

The Catalonian painter Joan Bernadet was in his mid-thirties when he arrived in Mexico City, at the height of the Porfirian Age, to participate in an art contest while searching for a position. He was already an accomplished artist: by the time he was barely 20 he had already studied in Barcelona, Madrid and Paris; he then headed up a prestigious art academy in his native land. But he left Catalonia to explore new horizons, competing in the art contest previously mentioned along with other painters, such as the famous Mexican landscape artist José María Velasco, himself from Orizaba.

Bernadet did, indeed, receive a third prize. Then, thinking to earn some money for the return home, he went to see something of the country and traveled to Puebla to paint portraits of local society people there. Next, upon passing through Xalapa, the painter met Veracruz Governor Teodoro A. Dehesa.  This meeting changed the course of his life, which ultimately involved a productive 30-odd-year career in the State of Veracruz where he lived and died without ever returning to Catalonia.

A glance at the works on display at the MAEV (Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz – Museum of Art of the State of Veracruz) reveals the artfully mimetic nature of Bernadet’s works. Like many artists formed in the rigorous academic tradition –requiring him to execute faithful copies of masters such as Murillo, or to use classical compositions as the basis for his own works – he never entirely lost this hábito copista.  

Thus the image employed for the publicity of the Orizaba exhibit, a particularly charming icon from the private collection of doña Susana Montiel de Velasco, immediately recalls the aesthetic of Czech artist Alfons Mucha.  

While on one hand, the portrait is very Mexican in its theme--the imaging of a beloved, deceased child—on the other, it is very European:  the use of symbolism, intricate laurel-leaf decoration, and a halo-like golden disk behind the head of the little boy are in the romantic art nouveau style of Mucha. Ever eclectic, Bernadet combines the tender ingenuousness of the young Rafael Montiel’s features with the solemnity of an orthodox icon. 

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