A comparative study about the circle of artists in Paris related with Cabrero y Mons (1871-1954)

What is it about?

This chapter tell us of José Cabrero y Mons’ life in Paris as the 19th Century turned into the 20th. He was acquainted with artists from the Impressionist Movement and knew such luminaries of pre-modern and modern art as Puvis de Chavannes, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, and Picasso, among others. Cabrero had the rare privilege of encountering and becoming cognisant with a succession of trends that sought to redefine the concept of art and its manifestations in fluctuating literary and art worlds. He was the right man at the right time and at the right place. He was a sharp-eyed observer of art, as his friend Ramón Gómez de la Serna described him, and he participated in the development of modernity.

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Why is it important?

While in Paris, he found lodgings in two of the quarters most popular amongst the artistic community: in Montmartre and, later on, in Montparnasse. He was a pupil of the highlyacclaimed painter, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. With other young men and women who felt the same artistic calling, friends like Francisco Iturrino and Francisco Durrio, he shared studios, artistic emotions and the hardships of a life dedicated to art. Though advised to follow his own bent as a self-taught artist, he nonetheless conscientiously studied the history of art. He was a regular visitor at the most important museums and encountered the modern world at its most vibrant at the Universal Exhibition of 1889, La Libre Esthétique of 1898 and the Rose-Croix Salons. During this period, he began to put together a collection of drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the work of his friends and teachers and these he would take to the most popular art and literary cafés and banquets, places, and occasions like La NouvelleAthènes, the Banquets de la Plume, the Dîners du Quatorze and the Tuesdays at La Closerie des Lilas. He was also a music lover, went to the Lamoreaux Concerts and was an admirer of Wagner. This all led to a detailed knowledge of the latest trends in music, poetry, narrative writing, philosophy, architecture, the decorative arts, aesthetics as well as to the amassing of a substantial library which, amongst others, contained books published by his friends. Cabrero, as a Symbolist painter, was aware of the need for unity in art though his personal inclinations tended more towards the symbolist movement. He was present at the birth of modernity and witnessed the dialogue that sprang up between the various art disciplines. Cabrero was both a participant in and a spectator at this momentous period of history.

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