Claudio Lorenzale

CLAUDIO LORENZALE Y SUGRAÑES (Barcelona, 1816 - 1889).
"Allegory of Industry".
Oil on cardboard.
Signed with initials.
Measurements: 23 x 34 cm.

Outstanding Catalan painter and teacher of the XIX century, integrated in the Nazarenism, Claudio Lorenzale represented the movement of the medievalist romanticism that is the origin of the recovery of the historical past in Catalonia, condiciendo with the Catalan Renaixença. From an Italian family, Lorenzale was educated in Murcia from 1828, and in 1830 he entered the School of La Llotja in Barcelona. There he had Pelegrí Clavé as his teacher, and in 1837 he won the first prize in painting for the work "Jael and Sísara". That same year he moved to Rome with Pau Milà, and through him he came into contact with the Nazarene painter Friedrich Overbeck, who became his teacher. He continued his training at the Academy of San Lucas in Rome, where he was also distinguished with a first prize in painting. During his stay in Italy, Lorenzale traveled to various cities in the country, learning first-hand about the great masters of the Renaissance. In 1844 he returned to Barcelona with his own artistic personality, a purist aesthetic inspired by medieval art and the teachings of Overbeck. He founded his own academy that would acquire great renown, from which he defended the recovery of models prior to Raphael. His prestige as a teacher led him to be appointed in 1851 as associate professor of the higher studies of painting at La Llotja, a school of which he would later be appointed director (1858-1885). Among his numerous students we find outstanding authors such as Mariano Fortuny, Antonio Caba or his son, Ramiro Lorenzale. In fact, through his private classes and at La Llotja he would influence most of the Barcelona painters of the time. As a painter, he tackled the main themes of the Spanish school of the time, such as religious painting, history or portraiture, the latter genre in which he was especially recognized. Lorenzale is currently represented in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the City Hall and the University of Barcelona, among other public and private collections.