DOI issue:
No. 206 (May, 1910)
DOI article:Margaux, Adrian: The paintings of Enrique Serra
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20969#0323
Enrique Serra
Like Fortuny, he was born of very poor parents,
and consequently his education in boyhood was
very scanty. Like him, however, Enrique Serra
had an opportunity of showing at an early age
his great natural talent, with the result that in a
large measure public assistance made good the
lack of private fortune. Mariano Fortuny, it may
be remembered, happened to have as his grand-
father the proprietor of a travelling wax-works
show, and the skill shown by the youth in painting
the figures attracted the attention of the civic
authorities at Barcelona, who granted him an
allowance to enable him to enter upon a course
of study in its Academy. Enrique Serra had the
luck to be born in this, the most art-loving city in
Spain. At the age of 16 he had painted a large
picture, La Paz de Espaha, and this being shown
to the Mayor he was invited to exhibit it in the
Town Flail. It aroused much enthusiasm, the
tangible result of which placed Serra as a student
at the Barcelona Academy, where, like Fortuny
before him, he won in due course the Prix de
Rome, the coveted scholarship awarded by the
Spanish Government for tenure at the Spanish
Academy on the banks of the Tiber.
Enrique Serra took up his residence in Rome in
1878, when he was eighteen years of age, and, with
the exception of a few months spent in Paris, he
has remained there ever since. Fortuny’s un-
timely death had taken place four years before in
the city to which he had been similarly faithful.
But his influence, it need hardly be said, still
dominated the Spanish Academy, and it was under
the full force of that influence that Serra completed
his academic career and began independent work
as a painter. Here the parallel between the men
breaks off. Fortuny died at the very early age of
thirty-six, a victim to the malarial fever which is
still the curse of some parts of Italy ; Serra at the
age of fifty is happily in the full vigour of his
work, recalling in some of its mannerisms the
deceased master and exhibiting also in other
qualities a healthy individuality of his own.
Within five years of arrival at Rome, Serra’s
talent had won sufficient recognition as to enable
him to obtain a commission from the Pope for the
private gallery at the Vatican, his subject being
The Virgin 0] Montserrat. This picture, which
he afterwards reproduced in mosaic, won for its
painter admission to the select circles of the
Academy. The Quirinal in this matter followed
the example of the Vatican, the late King
“ LE M ARCHit \ TERRASINA”
298
BY ENRIQUE SERRA
Like Fortuny, he was born of very poor parents,
and consequently his education in boyhood was
very scanty. Like him, however, Enrique Serra
had an opportunity of showing at an early age
his great natural talent, with the result that in a
large measure public assistance made good the
lack of private fortune. Mariano Fortuny, it may
be remembered, happened to have as his grand-
father the proprietor of a travelling wax-works
show, and the skill shown by the youth in painting
the figures attracted the attention of the civic
authorities at Barcelona, who granted him an
allowance to enable him to enter upon a course
of study in its Academy. Enrique Serra had the
luck to be born in this, the most art-loving city in
Spain. At the age of 16 he had painted a large
picture, La Paz de Espaha, and this being shown
to the Mayor he was invited to exhibit it in the
Town Flail. It aroused much enthusiasm, the
tangible result of which placed Serra as a student
at the Barcelona Academy, where, like Fortuny
before him, he won in due course the Prix de
Rome, the coveted scholarship awarded by the
Spanish Government for tenure at the Spanish
Academy on the banks of the Tiber.
Enrique Serra took up his residence in Rome in
1878, when he was eighteen years of age, and, with
the exception of a few months spent in Paris, he
has remained there ever since. Fortuny’s un-
timely death had taken place four years before in
the city to which he had been similarly faithful.
But his influence, it need hardly be said, still
dominated the Spanish Academy, and it was under
the full force of that influence that Serra completed
his academic career and began independent work
as a painter. Here the parallel between the men
breaks off. Fortuny died at the very early age of
thirty-six, a victim to the malarial fever which is
still the curse of some parts of Italy ; Serra at the
age of fifty is happily in the full vigour of his
work, recalling in some of its mannerisms the
deceased master and exhibiting also in other
qualities a healthy individuality of his own.
Within five years of arrival at Rome, Serra’s
talent had won sufficient recognition as to enable
him to obtain a commission from the Pope for the
private gallery at the Vatican, his subject being
The Virgin 0] Montserrat. This picture, which
he afterwards reproduced in mosaic, won for its
painter admission to the select circles of the
Academy. The Quirinal in this matter followed
the example of the Vatican, the late King
“ LE M ARCHit \ TERRASINA”
298
BY ENRIQUE SERRA