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

Earl of Estaing Biography

Count of Estaing (Charles Henri, Count of Estaing; Ravel, Auvergne, 1729-Paris, 1794) French admiral.He participated with a French squad in the US war of independence, defeating Admiral Byron (1779).He also took part in the siege of Gibraltar (1780) under the command of the Franco-Spanish squad.In 1792 he was appointed admiral, but two years later he was executed under the Terror, despite his republican ideas.
Post a Comment
Read more

Prince Felipe Biography

After having told you about the Biography of King Juan Carlos de Borbon, on the occasion of the news of his abdication we want to tell you now what is his son's biography and next King of Spain.In Overhistory, Prince Felipe's Biography. Prince Felipe Biography The Prince Felipe de Borbon is the firstborn of Don Juan Carlos de Borbon and Sofia of Greece, Reyes de Espana so the is the crown heir and next King of Spain. The prince was born in Madrid on January 30, 1968 being the first son of the future kings of Spain (Juan Carlos he is not proclaimed king until 1975) and heir to the crown. He was baptized r receiving the names of Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbon y Grecia ; Felipe, is the name he receives for Felipe V, the first Borbon who occupied the throne of Spain; Juan, for his paternal grandfather, Don Juan de Borbon, count of Barcelona, ​​Pablo for his maternal grandfather, King Paul of Greece, Alfonso for his great grandfather,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco Defilippis Novoa Biography

Francisco Defilippis Novoa (Paraná, 1889-Buenos Aires, 1930) Argentine playwright who harmonized a grotesque vein with avant-garde and mystical elements.He worked in Entre Ríos as a rural teacher, then he moved to Rosario and dedicated himself to journalism. In his beginnings he manifested a tendency towards romantic realism, but, influenced by avant-garde readings, he later moved on to an expressionist style, to finally lead to one of the most characteristic genres of theater in his country : the grotesque.He translated pieces, among others, by authors such as Luigi Pirandello, which allowed him to get to know the avant-garde theater that was taking place in the world. His work includes Saturday (1913), The old man's house (1914), The little mother (1920), The storm (1922), The Samaritan woman (1923), The ways of the world (1925), I I was twenty years old (1926), Maria the fool (1926), Your honor and mine (1926), Wake up Cipriano (1929) and three other t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apartheid

In the history of Africa, one of the most significant moments and periods was that of Apartheid, and that consisted of a racial segregation lived in the twentieth century that lasted until the early 90s in South Africa. It is hard to believe that in a country like Africa , and specifically in Sufafrica , the colonialism of the first white powers, will end up in a period of segregation in which the black population barely had rights and that I ended up separating them from everything. Article index How it was born and what is Apartheid: In the mid-twentieth century and although the black population was mostly over the white, appears what we know as Apartheid , derived in fact from a certain white supremacy that had been imposed since the beginning of this Century (In fact in 1910 only the whites could access the Parliament and a 1913 law on indigenous lands limited the land that could be in the hands of blacks to 21 million acres. This word is translated from African...
Post a Comment
Read more

Francisco Galí Biography

Francisco Galí (Seville, 1539-Mexico, 1591) Spanish navigator.In 1582 he undertook a trip to the coast of North America by order of the viceroy of Mexico Pedro Moya.He explored some of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, the coast of Baja California and the San Francisco Bay.He wrote an account of his travels.
Post a Comment
Read more

Celtic culture: history and symbols

All current cultures have a very enriching past and it is necessary to discover to understand many of the traditions that are used today.This happens with the Celtic culture: history and symbols that characterize it , many times we are not aware of the influence of what we do today with ancient cultures. Who were the Celts Despite the uncertainty, it is recognized that the Celts had their peak moments and were actually considered a civilization during the Iron Age. The basis of this Celtic civilization was the union of different peoples with autonomy and that they shared certain cultural and symbolic values, in addition to the Celtic language. The Celts were a people considered warrior and that, due to this part of their personality, there were many m Omentos in which they had quite deadly battles among themselves.This may be one of the main reasons why the Celtic civilization did not have a political projection or a common goal. Origin of the Celts The doubts that ex...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Legend of the Holy Grail

No other medieval fable is so rich in symbolism, so diverse and, in many cases, as contradictory in its meaning as the legend of the Holy Grail . Is there any historical proof that allows us to suppose that there was a Grail that could be found? Or its legend is nothing more than a charming literary tale created by troubadours to entertain the members of the European courts? The legend of the Grail was recorded in history at the end of the 13th century.The mind of a talented French poet called Chretien de Troyes . However, when he wrote his Grail Story , Chretien included a host of pre-Christian elements.The legend went back, in fact, several centuries ago, to the Celtic stories of King Arthur , to the Irish tales, to the Welsh bards, where Christianity had not yet arrived. In fact, for the first Christian narrator of the legend of the Grail , Chretien de Troyes , the Holy Grail was not even a glass, but appears as a lavish and magical dish whose function is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The night of the long knives: the events

The life and government of Adolf Hitler, perhaps has been one of the most studied throughout history.Analyzing every step he took, as Germany was able to re-create such an important army if it started from a sanction, after losing the World War I.As a person like Hitler could have the total power of Germany, which occurred with the opposition.These questions have an answer The Night of Long Knives , some events that marked a tragic date on the calendar of Humanity, hatred, ambition and power combined in the early hours of June 30, 1934. Index of the article The Night of the Long Knives | Political Situation We talked in a previous article about the precedents of the Night of Long Knives.We recommend that you read that article if you want to better understand what happened and why it happened.In this article we are going to focus exclusively on what happened that night, although if we want to leave you a brief introduction. Since the beginning of the 30s Hitler he had climbe...
Post a Comment
Read more