360° degree panorama Joan Alcover, Plaza de la Reina, Palma de Majorca
"LA SERRA" BY JOAN ALCOVER
For Alcover, art was utilitarian. The function of poetry was to benefit the poet, people, and art itself. In his case, it served to relieve his sorrow, although he once claimed "I have no preference for sorrow as a source of inspiration; it is sorrow that has shown a preference for me."
On March 6th 1919, Alcover was struck by another disaster of devastating proportions. On the same day his daughter Maria and son Gaietà both died, the victims of a flu epidemic. The former died in Mallorca and the latter in Barcelona. On one same night, death carried away their two souls. Alcover was once again left grief stricken and bereft.
Months later, as a sign of gratitude to the poet, Palma City Council notified him that it intended to erect a monument dedicated to his person. When Alcover found out, he was categorically against the idea. The project went ahead, however, with an enthusiastic response by the Mallorcan people, who helped to meet its cost through donations. The monument, which pays tribute to the poem "La Serra", features a fountain designed by architect Guillem Forteza, with a bronze sculpture above it by Esteve Monegal that represents the female figure from the poem. Work on the site where it is located took longer than anticipated and Alcover was not able to see the finished tribute to him by the Mallorcan people. On the night of February 25th 1926, Joan Alcover died of pneumonia. Two years later, Monegal's sculpture was inaugurated in the Palma square Plaça de la Reina.
Today the monument to Alcover's poem goes unnoticed by many citizens. Those who do visit it, attracted by its little garden, tend to be tourists. Thanks to the shade of its trees and the water that gushes forth from the fountain, it is a small oasis where people can revive their flagging spirits. A tiny piece of nature in a city full of fumes and noise, it is a little bit of "La Serra" brought to Palma.
