Skip to main content

Josep Llimona Biography

Josep Llimona

(Barcelona, ​​1864-id., 1934) Spanish sculptor.He frequented the workshop of Frederic Trías and completed his studies at the Escuela de la Llotja.In 1880 he went to Rome on a scholarship from the Barcelona City Council.With the works he carried out in Rome, among others a sketch for the equestrian statue of Ramón Berenguer el Grande, he has already achieved awards and a great reputation.Since his return to Barcelona, ​​the orders and the realizations were constant.After a period dominated by religious themes ( First Communion , 1897), he turned to the female nude, a field in which some of his masterpieces are inscribed ( Desconsolation , Youth ).In other works, such as The Forger , the tenderness of the nudes gives way to a contained aggressiveness.He is also owed, among many other creations, the monument to Dr.Robert and the Risen Christ of Montserrat.

Josep Llimona

Hermano del painter Joan Llimona, also his sons María and Rafael would be artists, dedicated respectively to sculpture and painting.Josep Llimona began his training in Federico Trías's workshop and at the age of fourteen he entered the School of Fine Arts of La Llotja in Barcelona, ​​where he studied painting with Martí Alsina and sculpture with the Valimitjana brothers and Nobas.The Barcelona City Council granted him the Fortuny pension in 1880 to further his training in Rome, a city where he frequented Enric Serra's workshop, attended the Gigi Academy and received the influence of the four-century sculpture (especially by Donatello) more than properly that of the classical one, along with certain medieval echoes.

During his first Roman year he made the sketches for the equestrian sculpture of Ramón Berenguer III el Grande, which earned him the extension of the scholarship for one more year.He then modeled the work and presented it at the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1888.The reliefs that he sculpted for the monument to Christopher Columbus in the port of Barcelona (1886) also correspond to the stage immediately after his stay in Rome.commission of the Universal Exhibition, a statue of Ramón Berenguer el Viejo and the frieze of the Arc de Triomphe.

Shortly after, in 1892, Josep Llimona founded with his brother Joan the Artistic Circle of Sant Lluc, of which he was president from 1898 to 1902.To the Catholic and moralistic ideology of the Circle correspond works of religious themes such as the Virgen del Rosario (1892), Consumatum est (1896, Montserrat) and The First Communion (1897, Barcelona, ​​Museum of Modern Art ).

The First Communion (1897)

Despite its narrative nature and still being in the line of Eighteenth-century sculpture, these works correspond to a stage in which Llimona felt an increasing attraction to the so-called "modernity".Indeed, since 1891, with his female head titled Modestia , Llimona's interest in modernist aesthetics was revealed, perhaps due to the influence of the sculptor Miguel Blay Fábregas, but surely also as a result of the trips made to Paris and throughout Europe since that year.Such trips led him to get in touch, in the early years of the 20th century, with artists who represented the overcoming of detail and the eight-century mannerism, such as Auguste Rodin, Constantin Meunier or Paul Albert Bartholomé; Likewise, they led him to learn about and follow a line of search in classical Greek sculpture of forms, volumes and an aura of serenity that allowed him to connect with the artistic ideas of Aristide Maillol and Manolo Hugué.

Modesty (1891)

In 1901, following the death of his wife, the introvert character that had always characterized him seemed to intensify; Along with that introversion then increased, his Catholicism accentuated the concern to reflect physical and moral pain, which he dealt with in a series of female figures, many of them naked, which became a frequent theme of his sculptural production.In this conjunction of the preoccupation with the volumetric modeling of the bodies, the personal crisis and the interest in the treatment of the female body, his work Desconsolation (1903) originates, preserved in later replicas, from 1907, in the museum of Modern Art in Barcelona and in the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid.Influenced by Rodin's Danaide , this sculpture must already be described as fully modernist and reaches the highest quality within the aforementioned female nudes in which pain is reflected, intensely but serenely.The sensuality and refinement in the representation of the female body demonstrate an unusual virtuosity in marble work and an impressive ability to convey the state of mind in a contained way.

Desconsolation (1903), by Josep Llimona

Responding to an eclectic modernism and as a result of inspiration from Rodin's epic sentiment and from the realism of Meunier's figures, Llimona made a monument in honor of Dr.Robert (1903-1910), a work on a social theme, realistic and at the same time fully idealistic in its allegorical exaltation of the work, arts and letters of the Catalan people.

In the decade of the ten and the twenties, Llimona continued with his series of female nudes, characterized by their soft and delicate invoice, with an approach to the figure similar to that of his productions of the previous decade , despite which, with his attitude of restraint and serenity, he managed to connect with the movement that prevailed at that time, the Noucentisme.Examples of this are sculptures such as Youth (1913, Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona), Meditation (1917), Beauty (1924) and Cordelia (1930).

Another of the frequent themes in Llimona's work, and in the same field of body modeling, is that of male figures.In them an omnipresent serenity seemed to guide the sculptor in order to calm the possible aggressiveness that reigned in the muscular male bodies; This is how it is seen in El forjador (1914), the equestrian Sant Jordi of the Montjuïc Park (1924) or the monument to the Martyrs of Independence (1925).

Funerary statues of Josep Llimona in Comillas and Cadaqués cemeteries

He did not stop cultivating throughout his life the sculpture of religious themes, as shown by the numerous funerary monuments that he made for aristocratic or upper bourgeois families: the Maristany, counts of Lavern, in El Masnou (Barcelona), the Mundet de Arenys de Mar (Barcelona), the Rialp from Barcelona, ​​Robert from Sitges (Barcelona), Satrústegui from San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa), Santiago López de Comillas (Santander) and Berjano from Cáceres.Other notable religious works are the Burial of Christ made for the parish of Vilafranca del Penedès (Barcelona), the Risen Christ (1914, basilica of Montserrat), commissioned by the Bishop of Vic, Josep Torras i Bages, or the Calvario for the cemetery of Portugalete (Vizcaya), commissioned by the Marquis of Comillas.Included in the works on pious themes are also some of his allegorical sculptural groups such as Amor a la infantil (Escuela del Bosque, Barcelona).

In 1931, Josep Llimona was appointed president of the Barcelona Museum Board, a position from which he sought to encourage the renewal of Barcelona's artistic and cultural life, having already become one of the modernist sculptors himself most prominent and influential in Catalan artistic life in the first third of the 20th century.His career included innumerable exhibitions in Spain and Europe and had been recognized with international awards; For his equestrian statue of Ramón Berenguer el Grande, he received the gold medal of the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1888, and Disconsolation deserved the honor prize of the International Exhibition of Fine Arts (1907).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Albert III Biography

Albert III (Grimma, 1443-Emden, 1500) Duke of Saxony (1464-1500).Son of the second elector of Saxony Federico II, he shared the duchy with his brother Ernesto (1464-1485) until 1485, the year in which he annexed the territories of Misnia and North Thuringia.
Post a Comment
Read more

Clemens brentano Biography

Clemens Brentano (Clemens Maria Brentano; Ehrenbreitstein, 1778-Aschaffenburg, 1842) German narrator and playwright, member of the group of romantic writers devoted to the study of Germanic folklore and history and one of the teachers of romantic fantasy literature. Clemens Brentano (portrait of Emilie Linder, c.1837) Brother of the German writer Bettina Brentano, Clemens Brentano was the son of the merchant Antonio Pedro Brentano, of origin Italian, and of Maximiliana la Roche, loved in his youth by Goethe.He had an irregular education, singularly because of the changeable character of his sensitive soul and because of an extreme fantasy, peculiarities that made his whole life unstable. Again in Berlin, while he composed some of his most beautiful stories (among them, the Story of the brave Gaspar and the beautiful Anita ) and legendary tales (such as the Chronicle of a vagabond student ), he contemplated, grieving, the shipwreck of his existence.He had always been an impro...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Berlin Wall - Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall-Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall .The construction and especially the fall of the Berlin Wall have been great events that have marked the history of the 20th century since This wall divided Germany into two parts for more than 28 years. In this article we want to explain the background, the history of the construction, the fall and where you can see the remains of the Berlin Wall.all about the Berlin Wall, the Cold War symbol ! Index of the article Background of the Berlin Wall Let's start the article explaining how Germany was and what happened for the construction of the Berlin Wall.When World War II ended Germany was divided , we focused on Berlin where the city was segmented and n four sectors depending on the countries that occupied it.Or what is the same, Berlin was divided into these four sectors of occupation : The Soviet area The American zone The French zone The English zone When four countries with such different pol...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ibn abdelaziz al-Saud Fahd Biography

Ibn abdelaziz al-Saud Fahd (Riyad, present-day Saudi Arabia, 1923) Saudi monarch.Son of Ibn Saud, founder of the kingdom, and Hassa Sudairi, he was appointed Minister of Education in 1953, a position from which he established a system of public education.In 1962 he went on to occupy the portfolio of the Interior and in 1975 the monarch Khalid, his half-brother, appointed him crown prince, a rank that served him to de facto govern the country as of this date, although he was not crowned king until 1982.Ally With the United States, with whose oil companies he associated, he organized an anti-Soviet front in the Middle East, for which he helped economically the weakest states in the area.Even in spite of his moderate disposition, alien to all radicalism, he did not oppose the permanence of Wahhabism, a religious variant of a conservative court and defender of strict compliance with the Koranic laws.In 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the outbreak of the Gulf War, he called ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Josef Anton Feuchtmayer Biography

Josef Anton Feuchtmayer (Linz, 1696-Mimmenhausen, 1770) German sculptor and stuffer.He showed a special predilection for elongated and elegant figures, and the poses and attitudes typical of dance.The decoration work of the Birnau church has been regarded as his masterpiece.
Post a Comment
Read more

Eduardo Chillida Biography

Eduardo Chillida (Eduardo Chillida Juantegui; San Sebastián, 1924-2002) Spanish sculptor, considered one of the most important of the 20th century.Born into a traditional family with strong Catholic convictions, he was the third son of Pedro Chillida, a military man who would reach the rank of lieutenant colonel, and Carmen Juantegui, a housewife fond of singing who reconciled his domestic chores with practice of choral concerts within the Orfeón Donostiarra. Eduardo Chillida Eduardo Chillida studied primary and secondary school at the Colegio de los Maristas de his hometown and in 1943 he moved to Madrid to begin his career in architecture.Although he would never finish these studies (in 1947 he left the faculty to dedicate himself exclusively to drawing and sculpture), some of the precepts learned there, such as the relationship between volumes and space, would ultimately have a decisive importance in conceptual ideation.of his later sculptural works.Likewise, in those years, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ibn al-Nafis Biography

Ibn al-Nafis (Damascus, 1205-Cairo, 1288) Arab physician.He studied medicine in Damascus.His professional career developed in Egypt, where he was chief of physicians, and later headed the Nasiri Hospital in Cairo. Ibn al-Nafis He is known for his writings on physiology and medicine.His voluminous book on the art of medicine, entitled Kitab al-Shamil , includes specific sections on surgical techniques and on the obligations of physicians to their patients.He also wrote various treatises on eye diseases and on diet, as well as comments on the writings of the Greek physician Hippocrates. His most outstanding contribution was the discovery of the lesser circulation of the blood (pulmonary circulation), to the that it arrived surely by pure reflection, since the dissection was prohibited by the Muslim law; Such a contribution is found in his work Sharh Tashrrih al-Qanun .His theory was not accepted by his contemporaries; However, as early as the 16th century, the Spanish theologi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prehistory: How did the Paleolithic hunters and gatherers live?

In a previous article we already talked about Prehistory and specifically, about hunters and gatherers in the Paleolithic.We suggest you learn more about how these societies lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. Article index Prehistory: Paleolithic hunters and gatherers, how did they live? The prehistoric era encompassed the longest period of humanity, and in fact includes from the appearance of man until the first writings are given.We can say that the prehistory is divided between Neolotic, Paleolithic and stone age. Focusing on the paleolotico , the remains of paintings of the man who lived in the caves, has allowed us to know that these were mainly dedicated to hunting animals and also n collected. Adaptation to the Environment In order to carry out the collection, it was necessary to adapt to the environment that is the ability of man to obtain resources from the environment for the subsistence and growth of the society . The humans of the Paleo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elijah Querejeta Biography

Elías Querejeta (Elías Querejeta Gárate; Hernani, 1930-Madrid, 2013) Spanish film producer.He studied chemistry and law, while at the same time he was part of the Real Sociedad de San Sebastián football team, a career he abandoned at the age of 24.He was a regular at the screenings held by the city's film clubs, where he met other young people-Víctor Erice, Antonio Eceiza-who would study at the Official Film School of Madrid. Elías Querejeta In 1961 he founded his first company, Laponia Films, at the same time that he collaborated with other production companies on his first films.After directing several short films, in 1964 he decided to found Elías Querejeta P.C.From his first films, he defined the style he wanted to print in his works, intervening in almost all of them as co-screenwriter, while gathering around him a group of professionals who would guarantee the finish of each film (Luis Cuadrado and Teo Escamilla as directors photography; Primitivo Álvaro, in the produc...
Post a Comment
Read more