el taller d’Artigau a l’estudi de Ramon Casas

Francesc Artigau

03/02/15. (Sala 315)

The taller is the third in a series of large paintings that Artigau Francisco has painted in recent years, one per year, in a thorough and changing preparation process.

First he painted Sant Pere Mes Baix Street, which is where the studio is located. Then it was the Santa Caterina market following the reform, with the Sunday goers and engrossed customers. And finally, the Taller: a 5.19 x 1.90m painting. It is a subject that has a certain tradition: Artigau recalls Courbet’s painting with a child and a cat playing with a sheet that has slipped off a nude model’s hip. But it is not a recreation or a tribute to the painting. As professor in Eina School, he spent much time drawing portraits of people and now that he has transferred classes to his studio, he continues portrait drawing. He has an interest in capturing the student’s pose when attentive and concentrated.

When considering a painting of this scale, he works on the internal relationships within the painting: there is a play of looks, complicity and attentiveness. Students appear in the scene, painter friends, his son and grandchildren. Two dogs he had and that no longer live observe through the forest of arms and legs. A partridge is also evident as they always need to play a part in this kind of composition, Artigau says, with a smile that marks his expression lines and makes the eyes disappear in an image, similar to Josep Pla’s when he made that Mongoloid face.

Every day, when he finished work, he would take a photograph of the painting.

He would mount all of them together producing a fascinating morphing effect with characters that appeared and disappeared, changed position, and the observer would carefully look out for when the models turned and watch out for the point when the croissant would appear on the table.

Everything is an excuse and everything is painting in the end: well built, bright and impressive painting by Francesc Artigau.
Juliá Guillamon.