Laureano Barrau

LAUREANO BARRAU BUÑOL (Barcelona, 1864 - Santa Eulària des Riu, Ibiza, 1957).
"Male portrait".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Presents tear in the canvas. Needs restoration.
Measurements: 199 x 95 cm; 208 x 106 cm (frame).

Full-length male portrait, resolved with the sobriety and elegance typical of the bourgeois portrait of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The character appears standing, dressed in a dark suit and holding a book, an attribute that reinforces his intellectual or professional character. The composition, of great verticality, stands out for the restraint of the gesture, the dignity of the pose and the neutral background of warm tonality, which concentrates the attention on the figure.

Barrau builds the portrait with a soft painting, attentive to the modeling of the face and hands, while the costume is integrated in a dark range of blacks and browns. The work reflects his mastery of the portrait genre and his training in academic realism, tinged by a luminist sensibility that would mark much of his later production.

Laureà Barrau trained at the Escola de la Llotja in Barcelona and furthered his studies in Paris, where he came into contact with the European painting of his time. He cultivated portraits, genre scenes and landscapes, especially after his connection with Ibiza, an island that would occupy a central place in his work. He is represented in institutions such as the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and the Museu Barrau de Santa Eulària des Riu.