01 Painting, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa's Démarche gitane (Gypsy approach), with Footnotes. #47

Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa, 1871 - 1959

Démarche gitane (Gypsy approach), c. 1902

Oil on canvas

113.5 x 146 cm

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

By the nineteenth century, Spain had embraced Gypsy myth and lore. The Romantics were in awe of the gypsies for their otherworldliness and seeming ability to commune with nature, while the following generation of artists and writers, driven by patriotism in the wake of Spain's colonial losses, venerated the gypsy as the quintessential icon of Spanish identity. Nonell, Zuloaga, and Solana were among Anglada's contemporaries who endowed the gitana with a gravitas, at times playful, at times austere, that linked her inextricably with Spain's psyche.

Painted circa 1902, the present work is amongst the first paintings by the artist dedicated to this subject. Depicting the gypsy as a synthesis of brilliant colours and rhythmic forms, Anglada lifts her out of reality to a wholly aesthetic plane. The colours are mesmeric, while the striking rhythmical forms have a musicality about them which is reminiscent of the gypsy sub-culture most nobly embodied by dance and flamenco. More on this painting

Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa (1871–1959), known in Catalan as Hermenegild (or Hermen) Anglada Caramasa, was a Catalan and Balearic Spanish painter.

Born in Barcelona, he studied there at the Llotja School. His early work had the clear academic imprint of his teacher, Modest Urgell. In 1894 he moved to Paris, and studied at the Académie Julian. He adopted a more personal style, after that of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, with their depictions of nocturnal and interior subjects. But his work was also marked by the intense colors which presaged the arrival of Fauvism. Lively brushwork reveals strong Oriental and Arab influences. Allied with the Vienna Secession movement, his decorative style draws comparison to Gustav Klimt.

He died in Pollença, on the island of Majorca, and is commemorated by a bronze bust on the 'Pine Walk' at Port de Pollença. More on Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa

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