Countdown to the removal of the paintings from the time of Primo de Rivera that cover the Saló Sant Jordi de la Generalitat

The Catalan Government will start this May the works to remove the mural paintings from the Saló Sant Jordi, in the Palau de la Generalitat, to restore its original appearance to this 16th-century Renaissance chapel, as conceived by the architect Pere Blai.

The reform, budgeted at 2.3 million euros, will involve taking down the 850 square meters of fifty canvases of a historicist nature commissioned from twenty local painters during the time of the dictator Primo de Rivera and which gloss moments in the history of Spain , some of them related to Catalonia, such as the reception of the Catholic Monarchs to Columbus in Barcelona, ​​in which some Indians are seen paying homage to them or the Compromiso de Caspe.

With the reform and, above all, the removal of the paintings, one of the wishes shared by several presidents of the Generalitat, who have considered them inappropriate for this noble area of ​​the Palau, is fulfilled, a state of opinion that was already gestated before the period dominated by the independence process.

The experts who issued the opinion in favor of removing the pictorial group maintain that it reflects a historical account with a "political and ideological" connotation that exalts warlike values, a "perennial monarchy" or Catholicism.

His Spanishness is not openly alluded to.

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The works will last 16 months and seek to recover the exposed stone and, for example, remove stone arcades not included in the original project.

The Saló Sant Jordi has an area of ​​450 square meters, the floor is original and it is one of the most solemn rooms of the Palau where the councilors take office.

The space overlooks the balcony of the Plaça de Sant Jaume.

The oil paintings, which do not have the category of Cultural Asset of National Interest (BCIN), will be rolled up, cleaned and deposited in funds of the Generalitat available to the museums that wish to exhibit them.

The frontal fresco of the Saló Sant Jordi presided over by an image of the Virgin of Montserrat. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

The works will be withdrawn during the mandate of Pere Aragonès, but already in 1930 the then Minister of the Interior and later president, Josep Tarradellas, asked that they be taken down.

Pasqual Maragall and Jordi Pujol also shared that wish.

was the

Quim Torra who promoted from the beginning of his mandate a commission of experts to address the future of the show.

The organ, formed by a dozen, among others, art professors and museum directors -among them the one from the Museo Nacional d'Art de Catalunya- agreed to withdraw the oil paintings in two months.

“They have a fundamentalist, authoritarian and anti-democratic component.

Warrior values ​​are exalted, the class order opposed to parliamentarism, the perennial and sacred monarchy, the state based on Catholicism as a social order, ”said the opinion.

The text states that the Renaissance chapel, the only one of its kind in Catalonia, is hidden by the paintings, which downplay their artistic value, and that it is a gesture of "reparation and recognition" by Torres-García, over whose paintings they were hung. the oils.

His wish was, therefore, to restore the works of this Uruguayan painter of Catalan origin, who in 1912 was commissioned by the president of the Commonwealth, Enric Prat de la Riba, president of the Diputación and later of the Mancomunitat, to paint some court paintings Neoclassical for the Sant Jordi Hall.

He only had time to do four frescoes:

(1913),

(1915),

(1916) and

(1916).

The death of Prat de la Riba derailed the project because his successor, the modernist architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, canceled the commission and covered the paintings with cloth.

Then the historicists got hooked on it.

In the 70s, they were recovered and now decorate a room that receives their name in the Palau.

The Generalitat will keep the historicist works in its funds that will be available to the museums that want to exhibit them

The Saló Sant Jordi is already prepared for the celebration of the pattern with some red fabric roses and a base that suggests the tail of a dragon.

Júlia Roca, the architect responsible for the Palau's heritage, assures that the reform seeks to rehabilitate the chapel and that the paintings that will be taken down will be restored and stored in cylinders in a fund of the Generalitat.

"They will be available to the museums that want to exhibit them," she says as she shows details of the room.

The ruling urged Heritage to remove the murals with the maximum technical guarantees to preserve their integrity and conservation.

The polychromy of the ribs and arches will be consolidated and will be visible and the rest of the vaults, after removing the canvases, will maintain a neutral color.

The Torres-García room of the Palau de la Generalitat, today. Marcel.lí Saenz

The unknown lies in whether, in a possible second phase of the restoration, the works of Torres-García will be returned to their original place, which are far from occupying the 850 meters of historicist paintings.

No party or entity has complained about the fact that they are going down, although some descendants of the painters have transmitted their discomfort to the Executive.

Among the works that will be taken down are the

Mas i Fondevila), which glosses the visit of Charles V to Barcelona;

by Vázquez Úbeda);

(by Vidal-Quadras);

o

(From Cabanyes).

And the two most important, at least because of their place in the room, are:

(Mongrell Torrent), where Queen María Crisitina and Alfonso XIII appear, or

Francesc Galofre).

Some of the works had incorporated some legends.

One of them said:

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