LLEI D'ART 14

jorge egea Doctor inFineArtswith his thesis Modelling, Creation and Knowledge:SpiritusClassicus, out of his essential dedication to the modellingof the figure and the classical traditionof the nude, Jorge Egea also investigates photographicprinciples, as a formalisation withinwhose limits light andmatter flow as one. He has been lecturer in theSculptureDepartment in the Faculty of FineArt at the University of Barcelona for ten years, and has taught drawing at the PolytechnicUniversity of Catalonia, engraving at theAccademiadi BelleArti di Bologna, and has been awarded a scholarshipby the Ministry of Educationwithin the JoséCastillejoprogramme. He has adegree inCeramics from thePauGargalloSchool of Art and is founder of theCatalonian Institute for research inSculpture OnClassicandContemporary (IV) The silent revolution of the female body In contrast to heroic representations, thedepictionof the femalebody has been themain feature of art from the 19th century to today. In theworldof sculpture, themain focus of this series of articles, thebody of the female has been the space for the greatmodern revolution, startingwith the great roussillonais artist AristidesMaillol (1861-1944). However, is this awell-known revolution?Promoted and boostedby the great official movements of theworldof culture?Quite the opposite: the establishment of a new look at the classical, adeep-rootedmodern understandingof classical art has been a silent, slow anddiscreet revolution – onoccasions silenced– that has endured throughout the last century. Thanks tomany of these artistswe are currently in a revival of classical art, with a new respect and evaluationof tradition, thus following the natural renewal of art, biasedby official art – the self-baptised avant-garde or conceptual art, dependingon the historical moment. The exhibition takingplace at Barcelona’s FredericMarès Museum curatedby thewriter and art criticÀlexSusanna displayed just this dialoguewith classical art as a launchpad for themodern concept of sculpture. So, Maillol andGreece (openuntil the 31st January 2016) recreates thebeginning of this neo-neoclassicism that bears no relationship to neoclassical academicism. In the catalogue of the exhibitionwe can read that: Modern sculpturebeginswithMaillol: rather, it iswithLa Mediterranée (1905) that sculpture recovers oncemore its thee-dimensionality, and frees itself from any superfluous weight and sets itself on apath to recent abstraction. Maillol’s piece is not trying to tell us anything: it imposes by itself, but thepurity of form and thepossibility of completely turning it round […] means it has been freedof any literary,mythological or even allegorical message […] andwith this pieceMaillol has freed sculpture from any notionof topic, substituting it with the unfailing search for purity of form. This exhibition is inspired in the 1908 trip that tookMaillol toGreece to complete this personal dialoguewithGreek art indirect contact with theworks in theplace theywere designed for. The sculptor was able to connect deeplywith the essence of themessage of antiquity. Thus, the curator goes on to explain tous: ‘ It is before the statuary of theParthenon, Delphos and Olympia thatMaillol reinforces his concept of sculptureby rereading theHellenic tradition in a rather heterodoxway: insteadof Praxiteles, the archaicswithPolycletus in the first row; and longbefore the classicising statuary of the Parthenonwere theOlympian Kores . However, inGreece Maillol didnot seek tobe inspiredby ancient art, but rather to confirm his ownpath: ‘toopen abeginning and not an end, toopen the century: if I have a role in art, it is this’. At the endof theday,Maillol’s interest in the archaism of Greek sculpturewas parallel toGauguin’s interest in Oceanic art or Picasso’s take onAfrican art. TheErechtheionCaryatids became themodel tobe followed and represent femalebeauty in its greatest refinement and splendour. They are the image of the kores , whichMaillol could see in the youngwomenof his village. Thismodel influencedother sculptors greatly, such asCharlesDespiau (1874-1946) and theParisian Bande àSchnegg , but it is the Catalan versionof thismodern twist on the classical that is unusual. Maillol, without quite knowing it, acted as a linkbetween Paris andBarcelona. Themodel womandescribedby the writer Eugeni d’Ors in his story LaBienPlantada (1911) greatly resonated amongst Catalan artists. Thewoman describedby d’Ors, Teresa, is a Caryatid , a female that represents the land and that, with her simple, round forms, represents thebeauty of women, both time-specific and eternal at the same time. The sculptor JoanRebull (1899-1981) captured this spirit perfectly in amarble sculpture of the same name. However, it didmuchmore. It transmitted the values ofMaillol’s renovating classicism to a thirdgenerationof Catalan sculptors that workedduring the secondhalf of the 19th centurywho, in turn, acted as a linkbetween themajority of current figurative sculptors. Thiswas the case of the sculptor JosepS. Jassans (1936- 2006), whodidn’t knowMaillol directly, but found the latter’s message in the ideas and forms that Rebull transmitted to himduring theperiodof closest personal contact with his master (1960-1969). In Jassans’swordswe hear Rebull’s own sentences, and as a reflection, those ofMaillol too. For Rebull, sculpturewas not just ameans to an end itself - that is, the result of learning a trade, but away of developing the spirit. A spirit that felt completely rooted to that of the Greeks, to that of theprimitiveGreeks, we could even say, to thePre-Socraticphilosophers. Jassans onlymade an ‘indirect’ trip toGreece, but hewas able todrink from theMediterranean spirit that emanated from theGreeks, and their ability tounderstand the abstract simplicity of the living form. FrancescMiralles, the historianwhohas theorisedon various occasions on Jassans’swork, haswrittenon a substantial change in approaching the sculptor’swork inone of his most recent writings, reevaluating Jassans’s contribution 89