The Siesta

This work and Castellers [Human Tower] are the narrowest canvases in the series. Both were originally located on the wall opposite the central panel on one of the short sides of the dining room. As Alberto del Castillo, Sert’s principal biographer, has noted, the two paintings have contrasting subjects and compositions: the first is a lively, celebratory scene filled with movement while the second, The Siesta, depicts a markedly still and tranquil moment. Despite this, the present composition is extremely elegant and conveys a certain sense of movement in the zigzagging arrangement of the figures. In addition, they are arranged in an ascending movement that lifts the viewer’s gaze upwards, thus further emphasising that slightly discordant sense of agility in this scene. As a skilled decorative painter Sert knew how to make best use of the format, adapting his compositions to it and thus accommodating it to the architectural setting for which they were commissioned.

This scene can be interpreted in several ways. The men depicted could be peasants resting after their labours or a group of drunkards sleeping after a fiesta. In fact, just one year later, in 1932, Sert depicted this scene in an almost identical manner (albeit without the figure at the bottom) in a cartoon for a tapestry belonging to a series that he designed for the Gobelins manufactory in France. In that case the group is located outdoors and it seems likely that it depicts figures resting after work. Its subject and treatment are extremely suitable for a tapestry, as is the more general idea of the fiesta and of picturesque folk details that prevails in the Waldorf Astoria series and which Sert would go on to explore, albeit with slight differences of emphasis, in that Gobelins series.