Gaudí's stained glass windows, like the inconsolable weeping of first love

An uncontrolled cry. This is how Jorge Aragone remembers the day he discovered Casa Batlló. The same reaction at the MNAC when faced with Duchamp's The Great Glass. One gets goosebumps listening to the emotion that emanates from the memories and erudition of who is undoubtedly one of the greatest stained-glass artists we can find in Barcelona today. He has had his workshop for ten years on Carrer del Peu de la Creu. He offers his services for restoration and also for the creation of new work. It's easy to fall head over heels for one of the stained-glass windows hanging on the walls. Perhaps for a Corto Maltés, perhaps your favorite comic book character. Whenever he makes it, he sells it. And there have been quite a few.

Translating the work of others into glass is one of the facets of his work that motivates him the most: "The translation of pictorial work into the language of glass is a very stimulating, very creative job." Jorge is Argentinian, from Rosario, but he has surprising ties to Catalonia. He explains them to us, generous and eloquent, as he shares pearls of wisdom about a fascinating craft. He has restored the stained-glass windows of Casa Batlló and the modernist complex of Sant Pau. Heritage stained-glass windows, a fertile and precious universe. He loves Catalan Modernism; it has been a school of knowledge and impressive roots for him. "Like discovering a first love," he assures. And he also touches new creations. The stained-glass window in the dome of the Cartier store on Passeig de Gràcia is his. Or the stained-glass windows – dome and doors – for private clients who want to decorate their homes following the inspiration of past artistic periods that are still fully current.

And where does this strong and at the same time increasingly casual connection with Catalonia come from? Be careful, because it is a kind of very curious serendipity. We must go back to the origins, to his native Rosario. His primary school was founded by a disciple of Rosa Sensat. “A school with an unusual teaching project in Argentina in the sixties, with a lot of artistic roots, a wonderful rarity.” But that's not all, in the city there is a promenade called Rambla Catalunya. Like in so many places in Argentina, since he was very young, Serrat's music and poetry have been part of his sentimental education. The first glass workshop where he worked was less than a hundred meters from the Catalan center of Rosario. Do you want more? Illustrious Rosario footballers: Menotti, Bonano and Pizzi. A coach and two Barça players. Well, and Messi, of course: “This wonderful dwarf”.

“When the dictatorship broke out, it became impossible to live in Argentina!”. He only stayed there for three years, between 1976 and 1979. And he left. First to Costa Rica, where he set up a new glass workshop, but he had no references to learn from and enrich the technique. So, in 1982 he arrived in Barcelona, where he experienced a very interesting and profitable period. The City Council had launched an aid campaign for the restoration of Ciutat Vella and Eixample. “There was a lot of work and I worked a lot. That Barcelona of the early eighties was a very special world.”

He travels through Italy –Murano, of course–, France, and Germany, and makes the mistake of returning to Argentina – this time to Buenos Aires– where he stumbles upon a new crisis. Until in 1992 he returns to Barcelona and no longer moves from there. “Barcelona is a great architectural capital, with invaluable heritage and legacy.” He refers, again, to Catalan Modernism and, in particular, to Lluís Domènech i Muntaner. For the dome and doors of the Cartier shop, for example, he was inspired by a stained glass window from Casa Lleó Morera on Passeig de Gràcia – a work by Domènech– which served him to create a very special pairing with a Cartier bracelet and thus design the dome. A job that also led him to work for the brand in their Vienna and Lisbon stores.

Many of his private clients are European citizens who live between their country and Barcelona. They know art, it inspires them, and, moreover, they have significant purchasing power. For ten years Jorge Alberto Aragone has inhabited his shop in Peu de la Creu – he was previously on Carrer de la Cera –, an oasis of delicacy, beauty, and inspiration.