Over My Dead Body (Ramon Casas)

Over My Dead Body
Over My Dead Body, painting by Ramon Casas
Artist Ramon Casas
Year 1893
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 61.5 cm × 50.5 cm (24.25 in × 19 in)
Location Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Over My Dead Body, 1893, is a painting by Ramon Casas, in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona.

Description

At the beginning of the 1890s, Ramon Casas began painting interior scenes with a female figure always present. Over My Dead Body, one of the first of the series, Casas paints a young woman standing between two doorways . Her posture appears to be looking out at someone and preventing them from entering the room.[1] The complexity of the open doors at the far end of the room contribute a mysterious quality to the painting, allowing the viewer to question where this young woman really is.[2]

The painting's original title was replaced for some time with "Summer Study." But Miguel Utrillo changed the title of the painting back to "Over My Dead Body" after a solo exhibition at the Sala Pares in May 1900. The title of the work is listed in Pel & Ploma as "Summer Study."[3]

About the Artist

Ramon Casas i Carbó (Catalan pronunciation: [rəˈmoŋ ˈkazəs]) (4 January 1866 – 29 February 1932) was a Catalan Spanish artist. Living through a turbulent time in the history of his native Barcelona, he was known as a portraitist, sketching and painting the intellectual, economic, and political elite of Barcelona, Paris, Madrid, and beyond; he was also known for his paintings of crowd scenes ranging from the audience at a bullfight to the assembly for an execution to rioters in the Barcelona streets. Also a graphic designer, his posters and postcards helped to define the Catalan art movement known as modernisme.

In 1890s, Casas was one of many artists exercising their artistic talents around the Moulin de la Galette in Paris.[4] Casas and his friend, and fellow artist, Santiago Rusinol, constructed several exhibitions back in their native city of Barcelona, that exhibited their first-hand experiences of the French culture and art.[5] Over time, these exhibitions quickly evolved into a center of progressive painting scenes within the Modernist movement. Casas became a leading figure in the revival of Catalan culture, and was one of the first Spanish artists to introduce French Modernisme to Spain in the late nineteenth-century.[6]

Modernisme

Modernisme (Catalan pronunciation: [muðərˈnizmə], Catalan for "modernism") was a cultural movement associated with the search for Catalan national identity. It is often understood as an equivalent to a number of fin-de-siècle art movements, such as Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Secessionism, and Liberty style, and was active from roughly 1888 (the First International Exhibition of Barcelona) to 1911 (the death of Joan Maragall, the most important Modernista poet). The Modernisme movement was centred on the city of Barcelona, and is best known for its architectural expressions, especially the work of Antoni Gaudí, but was also significant in sculpture, poetry, theatre and painting—notable painters include Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas.[7] Modernistes largely rejected bourgeois values, which they thought to be the opposite of art. Consequently, they adopted two stances: they either set themselves apart from society in a bohemian or culturalist attitude (Decadent and Parnassian poets, Symbolist playwrights, etc.) or they attempted to use art to change society (Modernista architects and designers, playwrights inspired by Henrik Ibsen, some of Maragall's poetry, etc.)

Further reading

In 1931, Josep M. Jorda wrote the publication Ramon Casas, Pintor, based on personal friendship with the artist. J.F. Radols wrote a two volume critical assessment of the artists life: Ramon Casas, pintor and Ramon Casas, Dibuiante. The most recent text on Casas is a retrospective catalog entitled, Ramon Casas, and is sponsored by Barcelona's City Hall. This includes several short analytical essays and a partial exhibition history for Casas.[8]

Exhibition

Exhibition history:

"Ramon Casas. El pintor del modernisme", Madrid, Fundacion Cultrual Mapfre Vida, 10/04/2001-17/06/2001

References

  1. ↑ Ramon Casas. El pintor del modernismo. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona and Fundación Cultural Mapfre Vida, Madrid. 2001. pp. 128–129.
  2. ↑ Ramon Casas. El pintor del modernismo. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona and Fundación Cultural Mapfre Vida, Madrid. 2001. pp. 128–129.
  3. ↑ Ramon Casas. El pintor del modernismo. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona and Fundación Cultural Mapfre Vida, Madrid. 2001. pp. 128–129.
  4. ↑ Weisberg, Gabriel (2001). Montmartre and the making of mass culture. Rutgers University Press. pp. 248–269. ISBN 0-8135-3008-3.
  5. ↑ Lord, Carmen (1995). Point and Counterpoint: Ramon Casas in Paris and Barcelona, 1866–1908 Volume I. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. pp. 1–2.
  6. ↑ Lord, Carmen (1995). Point and Counterpoint: Ramon Casas in Paris and Barcelona, 1866–1908 Volume I. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. pp. 2–3.
  7. ↑ Hughes, Robert (1993) 'Barcelona', London, ISBN 0-00-272167-8, p. 253.
  8. ↑ Lord, Carmen (1999). Point and Counterpoint: Ramon Casas in Paris and Barcelona, 1866-1908. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. pp. 3–4.

Bibliography

External links

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