JOSÉ SEGRELLES ILUSTRADOR UNIVERSAL
A year ago, we had the pleasure of visiting the José Segrelles Museum in Albaida, near Valencia. Since, I have had the honour and the pleasure of corresponding with the wonderfully enthusiastic people who look after it, so when they asked if I might be willing to write a foreword for a new book of Segrelles’ art, I replied yes the instant I received the e-mail.
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JOSÉ SEGRELLES ILUSTRADOR UNIVERSAL was just published this week, on March 12, in Valencia. With the kind permission of editor J. J. Soler Navarro, here is the foreword.
The young man’s name is José Segrelles. He is accompanied by his older sisters Dolores and Eduvigis, since José speaks no French. No English either, for that matter, but he has just signed a contract with the Paris representative of two of the most prestigious publications in London : The Sketch and the Illustrated London News.
In the small Catalan township of Albaida, tucked away in the rugged hills a hundred kilometers south of Valencia, a candle is burning in front of the statue of the Virgin in the village cathedral. Segrelles’ family makes sure the flame does not falter before the trio returns safely home.
But for now, on this cold February day in Paris, José Segrelles is on top of the world.
Perhaps exhilaration is a key word in describing the art of José Segrelles, though many more would also do : exultation, elation, energy, exaltation and elegance. His illustrations for the Illustrated London News embody all of those things.
Illustrating exotic scenes, stirring tales and exalted themes means allowing oneself to be swept up in the momentum they offer. Only this headlong embracing of another’s vision by providing for it a vision of one’s own can touch the spectator and have for subtle end the shaping of imagery both intimate and powerful, intensely personal yet nonetheless fully shared.
Segrelles excells at this impossible exercise. While the work he provided for the Illustrated London News (both work done especially for the publication and illustrations selected from other commissions) is only a small part of his œuvre, it showcases his best work as an illustrator. The word is used with purpose here, for the deeper meaning revealed by etymology: “a spiritual illumination”, from Old French illustration, coming in turn from the Latin illustrationem, literally “an enlightening”, and from illustrare “make bright, illuminate”.
Artistically, Segrelles is a bearer of light. He gestures boldly with light, whether it be blinding Spanish sun or a candle propped atop a stack of books in Don Quixote’s study, the fires of the Inferno according to Dante or the gathering stormglower of Ragnarok. Segrelles uses light as a sculptor uses his chisels, refining a detail here, enhancing an outline there, bringing them into the light as a sculptor coaxes life from the raw stone. Segrelles sculpts in light but models the darkness with as sure a hand. His darkness is luciferian and palpable. Not simply created by an absence of light, it possesses a sculptural quality of its own. The darkness and shadows he depicts somehow transcend simple accumulation of darker hues, making the spectator wish he could shift that sun or the candle ever so slightly to light those dark corners, to see what is hidden there, in the same manner one might explore a cavern or an attic of treasures. Few other painters create such depth in watercolour.
Prosaically, the majority of the work in this book is done exclusively in watercolour, and while it is not in fashion to extol academic skill, Segrelles’ use of the medium borders on the magical. (Most of them are of modest size, which makes his precision of touch all the more breathtaking.) Watercolour requires deftness and intuition, but also method and measure in equal doses. Segrelles combines both to such a degree that his technically near-impossible watercolours seem simple, as if they flow directly from his imagination into ours. The eye is arrested by his capacity to paint surfaces – ceramics, tiles, satin or stone – with the simplest of touches, as if he somehow intuitively so firmly grasps the essential of their very nature and structure and can so deftly translate it into pigments that it seems almost careless. So completely is Segrelles “in tune” with his subjects and themes that his work appears deceivingly effortless, especially in a time when digital techniques have blurred the borders of traditional methods along with our perception of them.
Incomprehensibly, Segrelles is practically unknown outside Spain. His work has never been exhibited abroad, with the exception of a show at the Nicolas Roerich Foundation in New York in 1931. His illustrations for Don Quixote rival those of Gustave Dore, but while the ubiquitous engraver from Strasbourg is indelibly associated with the man from la Mancha, Segrelles’ illustrations are practically unknown, and out of print, even in Spain. Segrelles’ Arabian Nights easily compare to the work of Dulac, his Orientalism is less contrived, but while Dulac’s work is lauded worldwide, Segrelles’ is quite simply unavailable, with the exception of an exhibition catalgue published in Valencia. No other artist has done, with such unparalled intuition and force, figurative illustrations for the music of Beethoven or Wagner. (Segrelles had an abiding passion for Beethoven’s music.) His illustrations for Dante once again rival Dore’s in scope, but his illsurtrations for the Inferno are nearly impossible to find. His dream visions are sublime. They have been out of print for the better part of a century.
Personally, seeing the originals of José Segrelles took on all the qualities of a pilgrimage, since first encountering his work decades ago. Standing in front of one watercolour in particular (one in a multitude – the same could be said of many others), an illustration of angels reclining on a cloud from the Arabian Nights, was a moment I will never forget. That something so bold and delicate can be created with such simple tools is a revelation of the magic of illustration and the confirmation of its great and lasting worth.
Admittedly, this makes discovering Segrelles’ work a highly exciting exercise, but to know his work is to yearn for it to receive the acclaim it deserves. That, to my mind, is the modest ambition of this book, the second volume consecrated to his work by J. J. Soler. To bring Segrelles’ work back to the attention of a wider public, to restore to it the timelessness that circumstance has robbed it of. To place it firmly in context – the London press between the two World Wars – in order to once more demonstrate the timeless qualities it possesses, qualities which never go out of fashion or obey trends. Segrelles aspired to the highest form of visual narrative, the creating of those fantastical worlds and their trappings of opulence and exotica, their unexpectedness of form and vista that transport the spectator without reserve.
But best of all, Segrelles was a prolific painter with many preoccupations and passions, of which the illustrations for the Illustrated London News are only a small part. I hope many books follow : the regret of obscurity is always rewarded by the joy of rediscovery.
John Howe,
Wellington, New Zealand,
May 16, 2009
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A few pages from the book.
