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We begin the tour of the exhibition The Catalàs, Photographers of a Century, which brings together the work of three leading exponents of photography in Catalunya, all members of the same family: Pere Català i Pic, his two sons Francesc and Pere Català i Roca, and his daughter Maria Àurea, who collaborated as a retoucher in the photographic adventure with her father and brothers.

The first image we comment on belongs to the first of the six areas of the exhibition, dedicated in this case to territory, place and space. The photograph –black and white in square format– shows a mountain landscape, a view of the Pyrenees from Puig Neulós, the highest peak in the Albera mountain range in the municipality of La Jonquera.

Feeling the embossed diagram of the image, you will notice in the lower part an embossed surface with an even texture, and an irregular contour that slopes downwards towards the right. This is the darkest part of the image, almost black, and corresponds to the shady forested area in the foreground. From here, a continuous succession of misty mountains stretches towards the distant, sunlit horizon. The undulating lines –of decreasing thickness– that you can feel, reproduce the profile of these mountains which, together and in succession, seem to create a kind of static swell in an immobile sea. The result is a highly poetic image, with a symphony of greys and forms that evoke melancholy and grandeur in equal measure.

This photograph has an interesting title: Homage to Walter Benjamin. In the words of the photographer himself, Francesc Català-Roca, “the Pyrenees was the barrier that prevented Benjamin from fleeing Nazi persecution.” The German writer and philosopher of Jewish origin died in 1940 in Portbou, near this place, at the age of 48, without having achieved his goal of crossing the border and escaping Nazism.

The sad yet imposing image of this side of the Pyrenees is Català-Roca’s personal tribute to Benjamin’s memory.

Representative photograph: Where?