Ramon Casas i Carbó
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Ramon Casas i Carbó (born January 4, 1866 in Barcelona ; † February 29, 1932 there ) was a Catalan painter and graphic artist and is considered one of the most important Spanish artists of the 20th century . He became known as a portraitist , made numerous sketches and painted the intellectual, economic and political elite from Barcelona, Paris and Madrid. His posters and postcards helped define the Catalan art movement that came to be known as Modernisme .
Barcelona and Paris
Casas was born in Barcelona. His father made a fortune in Cuba . His mother came from a well-off Catalan family. In 1877 he dropped out of school to study art with Joan Vicens . In 1881 he was already a co-founder of the magazine L'Avenç - the issue of October 9, 1881 contained his design for the monastery of Sant Benet in Bages . In the same month he and his cousin Miquel Carbó i Carbó, a medical student, went to Paris for the first time , where he studied first at the Carolus Duran Academy and then at the Gervex Academy. He also worked as a correspondent in Paris for L'Avenç. His famous self-portrait in Andalusian costume was created at the Carolus Duran Academy (Museu d'Art Modern de Barcelona). After his return from Paris in 1884 he undertook an extensive journey through the Iberian Peninsula. He was particularly artistically inspired in the Prado Museum in Madrid and in Granada.
In 1890 he settled with Santiago Rusiñol and Miquel Utrillo at the Moulin de la Galette on Montmartre (Paris). It was the time of symbolism . The pictures Plein air (1891, Museu d'Art Modern de Barcelona) and Ball al Moulin de la Galette (1893, El Cau Ferrat de Sitges) are masterpieces of this era. During this time he was strongly influenced in his drawing work by Toulouse-Lautrec , Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen and Jean-Louis Forain . From 1889 he exhibited every year in the Sala Parés , a traditional gallery in Barcelona that still exists today, with Santiago Rusiñol and the sculptor Enric Clarasó . Accepted and valued by the younger artists, he was heavily criticized by the Barcelona public for the triviality of his motifs ( Dona pentinant-se , The Combing Woman; Noia en un pati , Woman in the Courtyard) and his lack of color palette.
From 1894 he turned to social issues and popular life in his art: works such as Garrote vil , the Garrote (Museo de Arte Moderno de Madrid), La Càrrega , the attack / the attack (Museu Comarcal de la Garrotxa, Olot ), Ball de tarda , dance in the afternoon (1895, Cercle del Liceu de Barcelona) and Processó de Santa Maria del Mar , procession in Santa Maria del Mar (1896, Museu d'Art Modern de Barcelona) are representative of this era. In 1896 he drew a series of portraits of female figures. At the height of his form of modernism, he succeeded in combining 17th century realism with soft impressionism, i.e. the synthesis of brushstrokes with the subtlety of shining tones in a gray atmosphere. In 1891 he discovered Sitges for himself and moderated the modernist festivals there with Santiago Rusiñol in the artists' club and today's Museum Cau Ferrat .
In 1897 the four artists Casas, Rusiñol, Utrillo and Pere Romeu opened the Café Els Quatre Gats , which developed into an outstanding meeting place for artists. The magazine of the same name was founded in 1898. Casas published an important part of his graphic work in this magazine. From 1889 Casas also illustrated articles in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia . In addition, he made a large number of charcoal drawing portraits of greats from the fields of politics and culture. The advertising graphics also make up an important part of his work. In 1902 Casas completed a commissioned work that he had begun eight years earlier, the decorative interior design of the salon rooms of the Gran Teatre del Liceu using 12 compositions on motifs from the world of art. In 1904/1905 the famous equestrian portrait of King Alfonso XIII was created in Madrid . Since 1892 Casas exhibited regularly at the Salon de Champ de Mars in Paris. Here he met the American multibillionaire Charles Deering . With him and with Utrillo he went on a tour of Catalonia. Inspired by Deering's example of the restoration of a claustrum in Tamarit Castle , Casas restored the Romanesque monastery of Sant Benet de Bages , which he inherited from his mother in 1912.
Works by Ramon Casas in museums
Many of his most beautiful and best-known works can be found in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) in Barcelona, for example the "Tandem picture" and, since 2010, the painting Commençaments del segle XX , both from the Café Els Quatre Gats .
Further works can be found in the Museu de Montserrat , the Montserrat Monastery and the Museu del Cau Ferrat in Sitges . The paintings in the salon rooms of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona are also interesting .
Remarks
- ↑ "Quatre gats" ('four hangovers') is a Catalan idiom that stands for a few crazy people or a few outsiders .
- ↑ See the Catalan Wikipedia article Sant Benet de Bages
literature
- Enciclopèdia Catalana: Casas i Carbó, Ramon . In: Gran enciclopèdia catalana. 2nd edition 5th reprint 1992. Volume 6 . Enciclopèdia catalana, Barcelona 1987, ISBN 84-85194-90-X , p. 399 f . (Catalan).
Web links
- Enciclopèdia.cat: Ramon Casas i Carbó. Retrieved April 17, 2018 (Catalan).
- Katharina Cichosch (Schirn): Ramon Casas i Carbó - A Catalan in Paris. Retrieved April 17, 2018 .
- Google Arts & Culture: Ramon Casas i Carbó. Retrieved April 17, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Casas i Carbó, Ramon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish painter and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 4, 1866 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Barcelona |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 29, 1932 |
| Place of death | Barcelona |