Ramon Casas and Pere Romeu on a Tandem

Casas painted this in 1897 to hang in a Barcelona tavern he was helping open, Els Quatre Gats, which became the headquarters of the city's young modernistes. That is him on the back of the tandem, in profile with his pipe, and up front his partner Pere Romeu, who ran the place, looking straight at you. Behind them the Barcelona skyline scrolls past like a stage backdrop. It reads like a giant poster because Casas was a poster man, flattening everyone into bold outline. A line once painted along the right edge, later trimmed off, joked that to ride a bicycle you cannot sit with your back straight, meaning that to get anywhere new you have to lean forward and break with the old. In 1901 he swapped it for a version of the same two men in a motorcar.