J.M. Sert and the City of Saints

Vic has be­come an es­sen­tial place to visit to get to know the work of Josep M Sert, one of the most out­stand­ing mural painters of the 20th cen­tury. Vic pays homage to him with this itin­er­ary that al­lows you to visit the ex­ten­sive work he did in the city. In fact, the Ruta Sert has be­come one of the most im­por­tant cul­tural tourist at­trac­tions in the city, along with a visit to its his­toric cen­tre and its Epis­co­pal and Leather Art mu­se­ums, as well as the mu­se­ums ded­i­cated to Sant An­toni M Claret and the Vic philoso­pher Jaume Balmes, in the room in which he died.

The Sert itin­er­ary al­lows you to delve into the work of the painter whose name it bears and who was buried in the Cathe­dral of Vic, a city with which his name is for­ever linked. Var­i­ous places are in­cluded that show works or re­pro­duc­tions that re­veal the artist’s pic­to­r­ial tra­jec­tory.

The first lo­ca­tion on the itin­er­ary is a visit to the cathe­dral it­self, to see a work com­mis­sioned by his friend and pa­tron, Josep Tor­ras i Bages, and to which he would ded­i­cate much of his life. After two frus­trated pro­jects, one that was never com­pleted and an­other that was de­stroyed dur­ing the Civil War, the painter un­der­took what would be his final dec­o­ra­tive work. In­flu­enced by the Baroque paint­ings of El Greco, Goya, Rubens and Tin­toretto, Sert com­pleted these mu­rals in 1945, and they be­come the largest sin­gle col­lec­tion of his work, due to their num­ber and di­men­sions. This is a group of 22 pieces con­sid­ered very com­plex on a the­matic level and the cul­mi­na­tion of Sert’s ca­reer.

The Capella de la Pietat (Chapel of Mercy) houses paint­ings be­long­ing to his first and sec­ond dec­o­ra­tive pro­jects for the cathe­dral, as well as a model of the build­ing made by Sert, which shows it as it was be­fore the Civil War. The fig­ures of the four evan­ge­lists from the sec­ond dec­o­ra­tion sur­vived a fire in the cathe­dral dur­ing the war; they were thank­fully res­cued from the flames.

Mean­while, the paint­ings Sert did for the Hotel Wal­dorf As­to­ria, which were done in 1930, can now be seen in 15 re­pro­duc­tions on dis­play in the El Sucre build­ing.

The itin­er­ary is com­pleted with a visit to the town hall to see the paint­ing He­liodor ex­pul­sat del tem­ple (The Ex­pul­sion of He­liodorus from the Tem­ple) (1920-1921) and frag­ments of Hom­e­natge a Ori­ent i Oc­ci­dent (Trib­ute to East and West), which were part of the cathe­dral dec­o­ra­tion he did be­fore the war. Also on dis­play are Les qua­tre esta­cions (The Four Sea­sons, 1917-1929), which the artist cre­ated to dec­o­rate the house of an aris­to­crat.

More in­for­ma­tion is avail­able from the Vic tourist of­fice, which also or­gan­ises the tour in groups.