Leonardo Alenza

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Leonardo Alenza (possible self-portrait, around 1824)
Satire on a romantic suicide , Madrid, Museo del Romanticismo (1839)

Leonardo Alenza y Nieto (born November 6, 1807 in Madrid ; † June 30, 1845 there ) was a Spanish painter , engraver and illustrator . Committed to Romanticism , most of his work is a contribution to costumbrism .

Life

His father Valentin Alenza, employed by the government, had succeeded in publishing a few verses forged in his spare time in the Diario de Madrid . Leonardo's mother died around 1813. In 1818 the boy had a stepmother. She was eleven years older than him. Leonardo probably received his primary education from the Jesuits in the Reales Estudios de San Isidro . In 1819 he went to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , where he received lessons from Zacarías González Velázquez , Juan Antonio Ribera (1779-1860), José Aparicio (1773-1838) and finally from José de Madrazo y Agudo . In 1833 - still at the Academy - he painted an allegorical portrait of the three-year-old Queen Isabella on behalf of the Ayuntamiento of Madrid . In 1834 he created a fünftafeliges grisaille - Cenotaph for the 1,833 who died . Ferdinand VII From 1838 he worked as a draftsman for Ramón de Mesonero Romanos ' illustrated weekly newspaper Semanario Pintoresco Español (1836-1857) and placed alongside the Academy some of his architectural fantasies (among painters called Capriccios ). Alenza's most famous work, the satire on a romantic suicide (Spanish: Los románticos o Suicida ) , also fell during this period . In 1840 he continued to work with the journal Semanario . New editions of Gil Blas and the complete works of Francisco de Quevedo were prepared. He also worked as a decorative painter in the Café de Levante in Madrid . For his last work David venciendo a Goliat ( Eng . David defeated Goliath ) the Academy awarded him the title Académico de Mérito . Of tuberculosis ill Alenza worked still a few months as a professor. Most recently he lived in a cowshed because he thought the fumes in it had a healing effect. Leonardo Alenza died impoverished of his illness at dawn on June 30, 1845 in his house in Madrid's Plaza de San Ildefonso . Friends paid the cost of the funeral at Madrid's Sacramental de San Ginés y San Luis cemetery .

His works can be found in the Museo del Prado , the Museo del Romanticismo , the Museo Cerralbo , the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao , the Spanish National Library , the Museo Lázaro Galdiano , the Museo de Historia de Madrid and outside Spain in Budapest .

Illustrations

  • Los españoles, pintados por sí mismos . I. Boix, Madrid 1843 ( archive.org ).
  • Los españoles, pintados por sí mismos . I. Boix, Madrid 1843 ( archive.org ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Leonardo Alenza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

annotation

  1. ↑ Discussed with Alexander Sturgis: Rebels and martyrs. The image of the artist in the nineteenth century. National Gallery, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-85709-346-9 , p. 86.
personal data
SURNAME Alenza, Leonardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alenza y Nieto, Leonardo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish genre painter, engraver and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Madrid
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1845
Place of death Madrid