Along with Santiago Rusinol and Ramon Casas whom we've looked at before, not to mention Pablo Picasso, another Catalan artist who lived in Paris in the 1890s-1900s, was Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa (1871-1959).
He is the least known of the four outside his native country, which is a shame.By the time Anglada Camarasa arrived in Paris in 1894, both Rusinol and Casas were established there. The drawing of the cafe interior is typical of the places that the expatriate Catalans frequented in the Montmartre district. The havoc of drug use, especially among women, and the novelty of electric lights (Seeing Lights) were common subjects to all three art
ists. And although Anglada Camarasa admired the works of his French contemporaries, Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and for a time his palette was subdued, but he gravitated to the bright palette favored by other Spanish artists. He stayed longer in Paris, too, until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and became acquainted with the young Fauvist painters who shared his taste for vivid color (Downpour - Santona Bay). 
What distinguishes Anglada Camarasa's pictures is a marked decorative element in their execution. His work has been compared to Gustav Klimt's, the first thought that came to me when I looked at Hope.
Seeing Light is an example of his exuberant use of color; the setting is dark yet the picture vibrates with flickering light. As with Klimt, his female subjects emerge from their settings like figures from a sculptor's block of stone. French and Viennese styles enriched Anglada Camarasa
's work without confing it.
Especially during the winter months, the brightness of his southern sun is welcome.
Images:
's work without confing it.Especially during the winter months, the brightness of his southern sun is welcome.
1. Hope, 1904, private collection, Madrid.
2. Interior of the Cafe, c. 1895-1897, Private collection, Madrid.
3. Downpour-Santona Bay, 1900, National Museum of Catalan Art, Barcelona.
4. Seeing Lights, 1904, Thielska Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden.5. Portrait of Sonia Klamery, 1913, Reina Sofia, Madrid.
6. Granadan Woman, 1914, National Museum of Catalan Art, Madrid
7. Untitled (Cliffs of Majorca), 1936, Anglada Camarasa Musuem, Pollensa, Majorca.
6 comments:
Though a secondary subject in your post, the observation you made concerning the nature of Klimt's female subjects is interesting. I definitely see the resemblance to sculpture, which is an interesting contrast to the style of painting. Thought provoking.
Jane - you keep on coming up with fantastic artists I've never heard of - no disrespect to Camarasa, who was clearly wonderful, but really the name meant nothing to me until now.
Welcome, Logan. That idea seems to have been in the air at that time. It seems simpatico to me because that's the way I write, too.
Neil, the Franco-centric version of art history either appropriates people like Picasso or Brancusi, to name just two, or leaves them out and French being the most common second language of English speakers, the story is perpetuated. I plead guilty. I see a link with the Divisionist painters of Italy and Belgium here, in Downpour - Santona Bay and Seeing Light. The French give pointiliism short shrift because the science was imperfect, but the same could be said about the dream theories of the Symbolists. Divisionism is easier to see without those pesky nationalist ideas in the forefront. Of course, this piece just scratches the surface. I debated about removing it today, until I saw that there were responses.
Wow
"Downpour" is not by Anglada-Camarasa. It was painted by another Spanish artist, Darío de Regoyos, who is still unknown outside Spain, even though he was part of the avantgarde Belgian movements like L'Essor and La Libre Estethique alongside painters like Khnopff, Ensor or Willy Finch. Both Regoyos and Anglada are excellent painters and I thank you for showing some of their work to larger audiences.
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