Josep Arrau i Barba Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Josep Arrau i Barba
Josep Arrau i Barba, Self-portrait, 1837
Born	4 May 1802 Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
Died	2 January 1872 Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
Nationality	Catalan
Education	Josep Arrau (father); Llotja School, Barcelona; Giuseppe Molteni, Milan
Known for	Painter, art restorer, author and educator
Movement	Romanticism
Spouse(s)	Teresa Roger (m. 1854)

Josep Arrau i Barba (born May 4, 1802 – died January 2, 1872) was a Catalan painter. He was especially known for his amazing portraits. Josep was also a very smart artist who helped create new ways to take care of old artworks. He wrote books and taught classes about how to restore and preserve art.

Biography
Work
- Select List of Paintings
- Publications
Images for kids
See also

Biography

Early Life and Family

Josep Arrau i Barba was born in Barcelona, Spain. His family was full of artists! His father, Josep Arrau i Estrada, was a well-known painter and poet. His grandfather and great-grandfather were sculptors. Art was definitely in his blood!

In 1808, when Josep was young, the French invaded Spain. This forced his parents to leave Barcelona and find safety in Reus. It was there that young Josep first showed his talent for drawing.

Education and Learning

His family returned home in 1814. The next year, Josep began studying Latin. Soon after, he started art lessons with his father. Sadly, his father passed away too soon, ending the lessons.

Josep then continued his studies at the famous Escola de la Llotja (Llotja School) in Barcelona. He also learned from Joan Carles Anglès. At Llotja, he studied architecture and geometry, along with how painting works. He was there from 1819 to 1826 and won several awards. Sometimes, he even took lessons from the sculptor, Damià Campeny.

Josep loved to learn everything about art. He took anatomy classes to understand the human body. He studied chemistry to know what paints were made of and how to restore them. He even took botany classes! All this hard work paid off. In 1829, he became a drawing professor at the Piarist Schools in Barcelona.

Travels and Success

In 1831, Josep visited Milan, Italy. There, he took lessons from Giuseppe Molteni, a famous artist. Josep started by copying Molteni's paintings. Soon, he was painting from real life and helping to restore old artworks.

The next year, he returned home through France. He opened his own art studio in Barcelona. He became very good at painting portraits. In 1835, he took a second trip to Italy with his friend, Joan Agell i Torrents, a physicist. While there, Josep painted a convent and a portrait of his friend.

His first big success came in 1833. He painted a portrait of King Fernando VII. The king was wearing the uniform of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Josep even went to Madrid to make sure every detail was perfect!

Art Conservation Pioneer

After 1834, Josep gave many talks at the "Real Academia de Ciencias y Artes de Barcelona." These talks showed how many different things he was interested in. He spoke about art history, science, and new photography methods like the Daguerreotype. He also discussed the chemistry of dyes. Many of his talks were published as small books.

He was especially interested in how to preserve and restore art. He was upset by bad restoration work done by people who weren't experienced. He called for new ways to fix mistakes made in the past. He wrote many essays and led workshops. In these, he shared new scientific discoveries that could help restore paintings. Because of this, he was a pioneer in using many different fields to care for art.

In 1866, he became the President of the Real Academia de Ciencias y Artes de Barcelona. He had a clear idea of all the skills a young artist needed to learn. He was just as strict about how art conservationists should be trained. People called him one of the "great thinkers of his time."

Later Life

Josep married Teresa Roger in 1854 when he was 52 years old. In his later years, he focused only on painting portraits. He passed away in Barcelona at the age of 69. After he died, his wife gave three of his artworks to the National Art Museum of Catalonia. This was just as Josep had wished.

Work

Josep Arrau was not only a great painter but also a great writer. He wrote about many different topics. He was one of the first artists to explore how photography could help painters. He also kept personal journals. In these journals, he wrote down his thoughts on many art subjects. These journals are now kept in the Archives of the City of Barcelona. They have been very helpful for people studying the early history of art conservation in 19th-century Spain.

Select List of Paintings

The Mob, (Shows riots in Barcelona), 1835
Dama Catalana, (Catalan Woman), 1854
Un Joven Africano, (Young African Boy), 1855 (Shown at the Paris World's Fair)
Una Alquimista, (The Alchemist), 1866 (Shown at the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts)
Un Viejo, (Old Man), 1866 (Shown at the Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts)
Niñas Agell, (Agell daughters), 1872
Retrato de un Niño Cazador, (Portrait of a Boy Hunter), date unknown
Portrait of Damià Campeny, date unknown

Publications

Acerca del Modo de Limpiar y Restaurar Pintura, (On Methods of Cleaning and Restoring Painting), 1834
Acerca de los Sistems de las Escuelas Antigas de Pintura, (On the Methods of Painting in the Ancient Schools), 1835
Paralelo entre los Estilos de Zurbarán y Murillo, (Comparison of the Styles of Zurbarán and Murillo), 1838
La Fotografía Exerimentada por un Pintor con Mentalidad Científica, (Experimental Photography for the Painter with a Scientific Mind), 1839
Observaciones Acerca del Daguerrotipo, (Observations about Daguerrotype), 1839
Acerca de lo que falta descubrir para juntar la parte teóretica y cientifica de la pintura, (About what Remains to be Discovered to Combine the Theory and Science of Painting), 1850
Acerca de las Escuelas de Dibujo par los Artesanos, (About the Drawing Schools for Artisans), 1850
Teória Tónica y Cromatica Aplicada a la Pintura, (Theory of Tone and Colour Applied to Painting), 1854
Necrológica de Don Damián Campeny, (Obituary of Don Damián Campeny), 1857