Josep Clarà

JOSEP CLARÀ I AYATS (Olot, Girona, 1878 - Barcelona, 1958).
"De la nuditat".
Ink on paper.
With legend on the back, indicating that the drawing was published in the almanac dels Noucentistes (January, 1911, Joaquim Horta).
The paper has generalized stains (foxing).
Measurements: 28 x 21 cm; 36 x 29 cm (frame).

Made as an illustration for the Almanac dels Noucentistes of 1911 -a programmatic publication of the movement-, "De la nuditat" is situated in a decisive moment of Clarà's intellectual and artistic consolidation.

The female figure is represented by means of a continuous, fluid and sure stroke, which defines the body with naturalness and elegance. There is no artifice or theatricality: the nude is presented as a serene ideal, free of any erotic charge, in line with the noucentista conception of the human body as an expression of moral balance and timeless beauty.

The posture refers to classical models, both from Greek sculpture and the Renaissance, constant references in Clarà's work. The drawing already anticipates the volumetric and formal concerns that the artist would fully develop in his later sculptural production.

The role of the Almanac dels Noucentistes was fundamental in the dissemination of this ideology, and the presence of Clarà in its pages places him among the artists most directly linked to the intellectual core of the movement, together with figures such as Eugeni d'Ors.

In 1969 the museum that bears his name was inaugurated in Barcelona, where a large part of his work is preserved. He is also present in the Garrotxa Regional Museum in Olot and in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, among others.