Portraits
19 x 27 cm, 2021
The Gràcia Series
The Gràcia pictures are a series of small-sized paintings on hand-coated wooden panels that provide a glimpse into the inner life of one of the most beautiful Barcelona’s district, Gràcia. They are inspired by personal and particular impressions of dwelling in this magic place, which is full of reminiscences to the past.
It seems that the summer has finally arrived to Barcelona. It has brought its warmth, the smell of flowered trees, and brick walls heated by the sun. This first summer-like Saturday I suddenly have decided to paint outdoor. I love en plein air way of painting since I was a teenager. At our school of Fine Arts, we used to go for plein air each summer. The years passed, and I still feel that strange and thrilling sensation each time when I’m about to paint a spot at the street. It is something indescribably exciting and happy.
The study is the view to Vila de Gràcia Institute from Luis Antúnez street. It was interesting to nd a solution for how the foliage of the trees at Plaçeta de Sant Miquel, which creates an green oasis in the middle of the urban landscape, covers the facades only slightly, always letting the details – such as balconies, intricate modernist windows and decorative moldings – to be appreciated by the passer-by.
On a Saturday it rained all the day and only closer to the night the sky cleared up with some beautiful clouds that were catching the last rays of sunshine. The light of the declining sun illumined the tops of the buildings nearby, however, not penetrating down. The day was about to finish…
There is a certain difficulty in painting a sunrise or a sunset, since these are the states of nature that last only minutes, they are very brief and ephemeral. The forms of the clouds are changing constantly, together with the lighting. But precisely this feature – their instantaneousity, which will never repeat again, – makes these stages of the day so attractive for artists, all of whom can probably be characterized as having a special interest in capturing the idiosyncratic charm of the moment.
The clock tower of Gràcia (Campanar de Gràcia or Torre del Rellotge in Catalan) was built around 1862-1864 on the square of Vila de Gràcia by the project of the architect Antoni Rovira i Trias. The tower is almost 33 metres high, and, in its base, it has a public fountain with two spouts below the arch in the form of faces expelling water from their mouths. In 1870, during a popular revolt, the tower was the protagonist of people’s resistance, ringing consecutively for six days, and suffered damages, which then were restored in 1882. In the middle part of the tower there is an interesting cornice with twelve zodiac signs plaques. The clock was designed by a Swiss watchmaker Albert Billeter.
The inscription of the stone says: “The lack of water in the neighborhood of Gracia prompted the City Council to build this fountain, which began to ow on the 5th day of April, 1845.”
This beautiful fountain is situated on Travessera de Gràcia, 126. It has an ornament on ceramics with the coat of arms of the city of Barcelona, two mythological creatures that spit water into two goblets, and a flowery frame around. The author of this masterpiece is Salvador Sunet. Above the fountain, there is a streetlamp, which illuminates the fountain at night.
Cities
The Straßburg Series
These are paintings made from life in the small Austrian town of Straßburg, in the Carinthia region. Hidden in the Gurktal Alps, its development as a city flows into the history of the whole region, since for a long time Straßburg served as the bishop’s seat. Echoes of its medieval past are embodied, among others, in the Straßburg Castle and the St. Margaretha zu Lieding Church, which combines the Romanesque and Gothic styles. I wanted to feel and explore the texture in these works, the emotion, that is why the brush strokes are intensive as well.
Figurative art
