Joan Cardona

JOAN CARDONA I LLADÓS (Barcelona, 1877-1957).
"The kiss".
Colored pencils on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 32,5 x 24 cm; 56 x 47 cm (frame).

In this delicate scene, Joan Cardona represents a couple embracing in a natural environment suggested by the vegetation and the flowers that frame the composition. The stylized elegance of the figures and the collected attitude of the characters evoke the refined and sentimental atmosphere characteristic of the bourgeois life of the Belle Époque, a recurring theme in the artist's work.

Cardona resolves the scene with a precise and elegant line, typical of his training as a draftsman and illustrator, combined with a soft application of colored pencils that brings warmth and chromatic delicacy.

Trained at the School of Fine Arts of La Lonja and at the Baixeras Academy in Barcelona, Cardona furthered his studies in Paris, where he lived for several years and worked with prominent illustrators such as Cappiello, Sem, Steinlen and Roubille. He developed an important activity as an illustrator collaborating in magazines such as "El Gato Negro", "Hispania", "Le Rire", "Simplicissimus" and the modernist "Jugend".

He exhibited in Paris in the Salons d'Automne and of the Société Nationale, being named sociétaire, and participated in the International Exhibitions of Fine Arts of Barcelona in 1907 and 1929. His work is conserved in the Museum of Luxembourg in Paris.