LLIMONA BRUGUERA, Josep - b. 1864 Barcelona, d. 1934 Barcelona

Catalan sculptor. His first works were academic, but after a stay in Paris, influenced by Auguste Rodin, his style drew closer to Modernisme. He was very prolific and exhibited in Catalonia, Madrid, Paris, Brussels and Buenos Aires.

At the age of 16, he obtained a Fortuny grant, awarded by the City Council of Barcelona, and moved to Rome, where he made an equestrian statue of the Count of Barcelona Ramon Berenguer the Great. The work was shown at the Exposición Universal de Barcelona (1888), where it won a gold medal.

He sculpted a large number of works in other genres, including the Desolation, shown in the international fine arts exhibition held in Barcelona in 1907 and acquired for the city’s municipal museum. He also worked in the applied arts, and as a draughtsman, Llimona produced a large number of excellent life studies.

He was one of the founders of the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc in 1892.

Desolation

Before the end of the 19th century, Modernisme, the Spanish version of Art Nouveau, was introduced in Catalonia by Jos� Llimona and Miguel Blay (1866-1936), whose poetic, non-narrative works marked the transition to 20th-century styles.

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.

Desolation, a paradigm of Modernisme sculpture, magisterially represents the formal traits of Symbolism as adopted by the 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.