The Phantom of the sea

Joaquim Pla Janini (1879-1970). His work is considered to be a benchmark in Catalonia’s photographic heritage, and more specifically within the trend of pictorialist photography, which represented a call for photography to be accepted as art. Pictorialist photographers claimed that their work was equal to that of painters, and commonly depicted subjects charged with symbolism and often distanced from reality. In order to provide a pictorial effect, the pictorialists used the charcoal technique, though Pla Janini favoured the bromoil process.

The Museu Marítim has conserved the part of his work that is linked to ships and the sea, featuring a total of 34 transported bromoil images, produced between 1940 and 1960. These images include landscapes and portraits of seafarers (in accordance with traditionalist themes) which highlight the traditional activities of fishing and shipbuilding, and which show great technical perfection and balanced composition.