English
CaixaForum Barcelona exhibits until the 9th of September Jaume Carbonell 1942 – 2010 Retrospective, which gathers the work of the Catalan painter who defined himself as figurative “because the images are inside the world that surrounds me”.
The exhibition is a route to the work of the Catalan painter who reflected the self and Mediterranean culture, both in the domain of the landscape´s own colours and luminosity, as in the freshness of the themes that will identify him with the iconography of this Spanish region.
Jaume Carbonell was born in Barcelona in 1942. He was a painter, draftsman, engraver and he made interesting works enameled in glass and painting on clay. Creative from a young age, he studied in the Massanas Sumptuary arts Conservatory and in the Book art Conservatory and he later travelled to Italy to get to know the great Renaissance painters, those who had been the focus of his admiration from an early age.
His first exhibition was in the Ateneu Barcelonès in 1966 and, later, they were followed by exhibitions in galleries in Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza, Toulouse and London, among other cities in Europe where he marvelled the public with landscapes made in a very particular painting style of lightly texturized paintings.
It´s interesting to observe the work of Carbonell and his different styles that are included in the pictorial trends of the 20th century. In his beginnings, naif would dominate his paintings in certain ways, both in the use of shiny colours as in the figurative way. Even in his recent work Castillo de Irás y no Volverás, there´s a reminiscence of naif from his early stage, where intuition and the simplicity of a near-childlike composition, added to the great colouring, give it a stamp that, contrarily, doesn´t rigorously follow a trend.
His etchings have the cleanliness of the stroke of contemporary drawings, slightly minimalistic and focused on simple figurative compositions. Nevertheless, his drawings follow a more classic line that can be admired in the Ex Libris.
Despite his personal stamp that is discovered as his work matured and developed, Carbonell incurred in Fauvism and Cubism. This two pictorial trends from the beginning of the 20th century had an important influence in his work, which is notorious in his paintings on women, especially in Tres Noies, Terraza de bar or Las tres gracies. In them it´s very clear his search to free himself from the colour regarding the drawing, exalting some chromatic contrasts that belong to the theory of colour, typical of Fauvists. His dark, vigorous and discontinuous traces try to give sense of spontaneity.
All of these details that mark the style of Carbonell and the artistic process of his work can be appreciated in this retrospective that shows his work and aesthetic coherence, that today is highly valued in the art market.
For more information: http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/nuestroscentros/caixaforumbarcelona/jaumecarbonell_es.html
Nancy Guzman
Looking at the pictorial work of Jaume Carbonell is like smelling the Mediterranean and feeling the marine breeze that touches the shore. So if you´re spending a few days in apartments in Barcelona you can observe it and enjoy it.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
