Studio: international art (65.1915)

Studio- Talk

ARCELONA.—The art lovers of Bar-
celona have reason to congratulate them-
selves ; one of the city’s most distinguished
sons whose name is respected in the
leading art circles of the world—the painter Hermen
Anglada Camarasa—has, this Spring, entertained
them with an important and stimulating exhibition of
his principal works, and in honour of the occasion
the Ayuntamiento of
Barcelona placed at
his service several
rooms in the Palace of
Fine Arts. Anglada’s
work is so well known
everywhere, and has
been so much dis-
cussed by art critics in
all the art centres of
Europe and America,
that it is unnecessary
on this occasion to
enter upon a detailed
study of his achieve-
ments ; it will suffice
briefly to recall his
earlier productions and
record our impression
of those of later
date.

Some eight years
have elapsed since
Anglada showed us, in
the “ Salon Pares,” the
first pictures painted
by him in various parts
of Spain ; prior to that
he was only known to
us by subjects which
derived their inspira-
tion from scenes of
Paris by night—paint-
ings which brought
him a well-earned
reputation by the
vigour of his draughts-
manship, the richness of his palette, and his master-
ful handling of effects and contrasts of artificial light.
Travels in various regions of Spain, and more
particularly in the east, which possesses such an
abundance of picturesque material in its landscape
and its inhabitants, necessarily absorbed the
attention and feelings of an artist like Anglada, for
whom colour has such a powerful attraction, and

thus this first exhibition just mentioned marked
the first stage on the road which he was destined to
follow and which gave him a place in the front
rank of those artists who have portrayed Spain
under its typical and picturesque aspects.

In the exhibition of the present year Anglada
has shown us the path he has followed during the

years that have inter-
vened—a path in which
he has encountered
innumerable difficul-
ties which have been
triumphantly over-
come, as have those
which he has volun-
tarily imposed upon
himself for the satis-
faction of resolving
them. When contem-
plating the extent of
this artist’s oeuvre,
without taking into
account those works
which have been dis-
persed among public
and private collections,
the spectator cannot
help being astonished
that such a large num-
ber of pictures, many
of them of consider-
able size and very
complicated in compo-
sition, should have
emanated from a
single hand and all
been executed during
a few years ; but the
fact proves to us how
passionately devoted
Anglada is to his art
and what an indefa-
tigable worker he is.
The impression which
his latest productions
leave on us is not altogether easy to express. Each
one of them is so instinct with the very essence of art
that, without being guilty ot exaggeration, we may
say that they leave us amazed; the sole sensation
which the eye experiences is that of colour of
irresistible luminosity, which reaches its culminating
point in such a work as Campesmos de G-andia.
Colour is undoubtedly the most potent means of

“n6vIA VALENCIANA ” (BRIDE OF VALENCIA). BY
HERMEN ANGLADA CAMARASA
(Photo, Mas, Barcelona)

143