Desolation (Llimona)

Background

Considered one of the finest sculptors of Catalan Modernism sculpture, Llimona joined the Symbolism movement during the first few years of the twentieth century after a phase in which he had adopted an idealism deeply rooted in his solid religious convictions. Llimona contributed to the founding of the Artistic Circle of Sant Lluc, the intention of which was to preserve art from the excesses of contemporary artists. Female nudes were prohibited in the Circle's initial statutes, but later the prohibition was lifted; Llimona did not depict the female nude until then. It was then that he sculpted Desolation, a work he exhibited for the first time in 1907 and which demonstrates the artist's ability to communicate feelings that reflect a deep humanity through a naked female figure.

Desolation, a paradigm of Modernisme sculpture, magisterially represents the formal traits of Symbolism as adopted by the more outstanding Catalan sculptors of the day. These traits include undulating lines and softened contours, features that derive from The Danaide by Auguste Rodin. Even so, a notable difference exists between the resigned, melancholic and chaste attitude of Desolation and the vitality, strength and sensuality of the French sculptor's work. With Desolation, Llimona brought his process of sculptural renewal to a peak while also summing up the Symbolist aesthetic of one of Catalan art's most brilliant periods.

Description

Desolation is a nude version of a figure produced for a burial vault in the Montjuic Cemetery The sculpture´s measurements are 67 cm x 76 cm x 67 cm (26.4 in x 29.9 in x 31.5 in).

The sculpture belongs to a group of works created specifically for new pantheons built during the early 1900s. Artists created sculptures of angels or Virtues that included consoling women overcome by the weight of their grief and allegorical figures reflecting sublime thoughts and feelings relating to death such as despair, grief, or resignation. In short, they modeled desolate, meditative, and mysterious women with no regard to their beauty. The characteristics these works had to have in order to illustrate the general spiritual state led artists to adopt languid, bowed female figures with long hair dressed in tunics that sprang straight from the skin. Although this style wasn't adopted in all the works, female figures predominate and their formal characteristics passed into the artistic language used by modernist sculptors in the works they produced for collectors, without those elements more suited to funerary images associated with death.

Desolation is full of feeling, an aspect in the Symbolist vein. The most notable characteristic of the work is the ease with which it transmits inner emotions. The Hermeticism and mysterious nature the sculpture evokes have to do with its posture. The hidden gaze, the closed composition of the body, and its curved contours seem to enclose the figure within its own silence.

History

The sculpture can be found at The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). The work earned a gold medal in the V Exposition of Fine Arts of Barcelona in the year 1907. That same year, a photograph of the work was published in the catalog of the International Exhibit of Art in Barcelona. In 1909, Desolation was purchased by Barcelona's Major Domènec Sanllehy who donated or gifted the statue to The Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona. The statue was later moved to the Modern Art gallery of The National Museum of Contemporary Art of Catalonia.

Replica

In addition to the original, Josep Llimona produced replicas utilizing diverse materials. The bronze replica is somewhat bigger in size than the original. It was presented at an art exhibition that commemorated the work of Josep Llimona at the Parés Salon in 1934. The stone replica is a variation of the original, in which the female figure is clothed. The sculpture is the same size as the original and it is part of a funerary monument dedicated to Mercedes Casas de Vilanova. The stone variant of Desolation can be found at the Southeast Cemetery in Barcelona.

In 1917 Josep Llimona produced a second marble replica, much bigger in size than the original, it measures 78.8 cm x 68.8 cm (31.0 in x 27.1 in.) The sculpture was damaged over time and was replaced by a plaster replica produced in 1984. The sculpture is the centerpiece of a pond situated in front of Parliament of Catalonia at the Ciutadella park.

Analysis

Desolation represents a mysterious, delicate woman hiding her face in an attitude of despair and is one of the paradigmatic works of the Catalan Modernist movement. One of the principal points of reference for the Catalan modernist artists was the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The artwork reflects the influence of Rodin's work Danaid but with a more melancholy, chaste approach. The similarities between Llimona's Desconsol and Rodin’s Danaid lie primarily in the modeling technique used by the artist, the composition of the figure, and the thoughtful use of light and shadow. Llimona's masterful work arises from a block of stone, but the softness and roundness of its forms contrasts strongly with the roughness of the material. The female figure evokes contained melancholy that can be perceived subtly; her pose hides much of the inner world of the character. Her face, covered by a thick mass of hair, is unknown. Only the gesture of the hands, slightly touching, give life to the sculpture.