The Centre d’Art d’Època Moderna (CAEM) of the University of Lleida once again focuses on the study of an artwork by Joaquín Sorolla

The CAEM researchers and other experts consider in contrast that it is a substantial self-portrait of Sorolla.

sorolla_autorretrato

The piece was already known as “Study of a man’s bust”, a work from a private collection. In 1974 it was certified by Francisco Pons-Sorolla. Autorshsip ratified by Blanca Pons-Sorolla in 2014 (great-granddaughter of the author of the piece). She is also an expert in Sorolla’s painting, and provided the artwork with a catalogue number. The study has been carried out at the Centre d’Art d’Època Moderna of the University of Lleida, by the researchers Jésica Martí and Dr. Ximo Company, director of the centre, over six months. Above all, they have focused on the study of the portrayed figure, proposing the hypothesis that it may be a youthful self-portrait of Sorolla himself, made during his apprenticeship in Rome.

The portrait is an oil on a tablet glued to a thicker board. It depicts a young man with a scant bead, in profile, bent over himself drawing. This small format was used by the Valencian master to make notes of colour and intimate painting, such as a self-portrait. The artwork has been compared with various self-portraits and youth photographs by Joaquín Sorolla. In the opinion of the CAEM researchers, the piece is similar to other youth portraits made by Sorolla, in which he portrays himself on several occasions seen from behind, or even showing his own deformed reflection see through a concave mirror. Moreover, other factors support the hypothesis: the similarity of the profile with photographs of Sorolla himself, for example; or the technical study of the work, in which an intimate style is observed in the brushstroke, in addition to the use of the small format (the format used by the Valencian master to make notes of colour and his most personal painting).

All these arguments suggest that, indeed, it could be one of the artist’s first self-portraits. Furthermore, thanks to the non-invasive analytical techniques carried out at the CAEM (ultraviolet photography and digital microphotography), it has been possible to study the creative process followed by Sorolla in the execution of the work, thus providing valuable information on the modus operandi of the author during this period. Besides, during the study process, we have worked side by side with the restoration team of the center. The cleaning of the piece has been essential to better reveal the similarity of the features of the character portrayed with those of the artist himself, also helping to recover an inscription that had been veiled over the years, which reads the dedication to an enigmatic Esteban: “To my friend Esteban”, in addition to the signature of the author himself: “J. Sorolla”.

The study, that counts with numerous and precise illustrations, has been published in Spanish, but it also contains an English version.

The director of the CAEM, Ximo Company, writes an article about the pre-adolescent Picasso for the academic and scientific dissemination platform The Conversation

The publication concerns the beginnings, in the making, of Cubism, starting with some of the first drawings by Picasso in A Coruña (1891-1895). Here the entire subsequent revolution of the great artist from Málaga (1881-1973) was gestated.

Picasso

In 1891, the Ruiz Picasso family moved to A Coruña, where the young Pablo formally began his artistic training. There, he started to prefigure, with absolute clarity, the most important plastic, perceptive, communicative and expressive revolution of the 20th century: Cubism.

That is why it is so important to revisit the formidable drawings of Picasso during his period in A Coruña (1891-1895). A priori, they look like just another child’s drawing, but their substance is proverbial. It requires a careful examination to notice how the birth of a genius is gestated and how the pictorial revolution of Cubism is born.

To read the full article click here

Link to the online publication here

The CAEM researcher, Jésica Martí, teaches a course at the Professional Association of Historians of Art (APROHA)

The CAEM collaborates with APROHA, assisting in a specific training in issues of authentication of works of art.

course

It is a course in which works of art are approached from an organoleptic perspective crossed with the latest technology of scientific analysis. A course to learn how to interpret non-invasive diagnostic techniques in which the Center d’Art d’Època Moderna (CAEM) is specialized, which operates in the Science Park of the University of Lleida; especially multiband analysis, using ultraviolet, infrared and X-ray spectrum techniques.

The course lasts 12 hours, will be held on June 6th, 7th and 8th, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and will serve to introduce art historians to the profile and activity of the qualified expert in analysis and assessment of works of art (the speciality of the CAEM). A work for which it is currently considered fundamental to carry out an approximation and argumentation at the material level, in addition to the traditional (and still fundamental) work of the art historian, in which a purely aesthetic study and assessment of the work is carried out.

More information, here

The director of the CAEM, Ximo Company, gives a conference at the Chapel of Sant Isidre Llaurador, near the village of Ponts

This culminates the work of study, restoration and enhancement of the chapel and the movable property inside, which has been carried out by the CAEM.

chapel Ponts

In the municipality of Ponts, you can find a beautiful complex owned by the Comunitat de Regants del Canal d’Urgell, which houses a small chapel dedicated to Sant Isidre Llaurador. A slim construction designed by a great disciple of Antoni Gaudí: Isidre Puig i Boada (Barcelona 1891-1987).

The management of the Comunitat de Regants wanted to study, preserve and value this little piece of heritage that they keep. And the CAEM has been key to this work. We have studied the chapel, in addition to various movable property that it keeps inside: a tabernacle from the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, an oil painting of a crucified Christ from the 19th century, a sculpture of Sant Isidre Llaurador from the school of Olot, and some beautiful period lamps. Some of the assets, in addition to being studied, have been restored under the supervision of the Center, restoring them and thus helping their conservation.

Also, the CAEM has coordinated the musealization of the space for its enhancement, devising and placing various exhibition panels, in addition to the placement of a protective screen for the crucifixion, which can be seen in the same niche in which it was found previously, but now minimizing the risks of deterioration, and the new lighting that helps to appreciate the work in all its splendour.

In short, it is an integral work, which has been culminated with a conference on the day of the inauguration of the chapel as a musealized space: the day of Sant Isidre Llaurador (last May 14th), during the congregation party that the Comunitat de Regants celebrates that day.

The CAEM writes a book on the first drawings of Picasso in his period in La Coruña (1891-1895)

The book has been carried out by Professor Ximo Company and has had the collaboration of various researchers and scientific advisers from the CAEM, especially Miriam Carmona.

The text can be consulted in open access in the Repositori Digital de la Universitat de Lleida (UdL), which collects, manages, disseminates and preserves the publications in digital format derived from the academic and research activity of the members of the college community of the UdL. Specifically, this text is part of the research activity of the Grup d’Investigació Consolidat de la Generalitat de Catalunya “Art i Cultura d’Època Moderna”.

A new interpretive turn of the first drawings of Picasso is proposed. Of course, in all of them the adolescent Pablo Ruiz Picasso exhibits and submits to the ordinary, mandatory and traditional learning method of drawing classes taught in turn-of-the-century art schools throughout Spain, as the one in La Coruña undoubtedly was, but, at the same time, in some of these drawings we observe how the young Picasso, perhaps due to the influence of his teacher Isidoro Brocos, already fits, defines, traps and geometrizes some volumes (of animals, people, landscapes or architectures) with a very personal and differentiated compositional mode; in all of them he instills an undeniable proto-cubist stamp.

In addition, this text studies some drawings of anonymous authorship that can be related to the creative spirit of this first stage of Pablo Ruiz Picasso.

 

Click here to see full publication

Dr. Helmut C. Jacobs, Emeritus Professor of Romance Literature at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), widely specialized in the polyhedral figure of Goya, joins the CAEM group of scientific advisers

The incorporation of Prof. Jacobs to the CAEM greatly enriches the plural and holistic view practiced in numerous investigations developed in our analytical office.

Helmut C. Jacobs

 

Prof. Helmut C. Jacobs is not only interested in the philological aspect of “Los Caprichos”, but also in what he calls with semantic precision “the intermediality” between image, text and sound, that is, the union of the various media that concur and interact in each work.

In fact, in his splendid book El sueño de la razón. El Capricho 43 de Goya en el arte visual, la literatura y la música. Frankfurt y Madrid, 2011, Jacobs analyses an entire era in the Spanish history and culture. Jacob warns us of the clear influence of the Age of Enlightenment in the work of the Aragonese painter, which conditioned his creation processes and the various themes that Goya dealt with and analysed of his country and his society.

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