Arturo Michelena

Francisco Arturo Michelena Castillo, known simply as Arturo Michelena (Valencia, Venezuela, June 16, 1863-Caracas, July 29, 1898), was a painter and Venezuelan cartoonist. He is considered the most important Venezuelan artist of the 19th century .

He was the author of more than 200 paintings and around 500 drawings, sketches, studies and notes, making him the painter with the most prolific production of his generation. Together with Cristóbal Rojas, Antonio Herrera Toro and Martín Tovar y Tovar, he makes up the quartet of the great Venezuelan painters of the century xix .

In 1887, at the Salon des Artistes Français, he presented his work L'Enfant Malade (The Sick Child), by which He was awarded the gold medal in his second class, the highest honor that the Hall had given to a foreign artist. The painting was acquired by the Astors family in New York at the end of the 19th century, and in 2004 Sotheby's auctioned it for 1,350,000 dollars, a record for a Latin American work of art.

Biography

He was born on June 16, 1863 in Valencia, son of Juan Antonio Michelena (1832-1918), also a painter, and Socorro Castillo (1839-1909), daughter of the painter and muralist Pedro Castillo. He received his first lessons at the age of six from his aunt Edelmira Michelena. He then studied at the Lisandro Ramírez school and finally finished primary school at the Cajigal School run by Alejo Zuloaga.

He began painting at a very young age under the direction of his father, Juan Antonio Michelena. Among his first creations stand out Sleeping Cupid, The Rose, Brayan Triana, In your arms, Judit and Holofernes, and A ray of light. In 1874 he made the drawings that illustrated the New York edition of Venezuelan Customs, a book by Francisco de Sales Pérez, who became his protector and introduced him to the circle of friends of Antonio Guzmán Blanco with the intention of manage a student pension for him. Later he received lessons from a French lady, Constance de Sauvage, a disciple of the French painter Eugène Devéria; She teaches him to distribute colors, to take advantage of light and some technical knowledge. Between 1879 and 1882 an apprenticeship period passed during which Arturo Michelena, associated with his father, opened a private painting academy in Valencia to satisfy commissions for portraits, wall paintings, copies of old paintings, children's portraits and an abundant production of drawing. This work constitutes the training that enables the young man to successfully attend the Great Exhibition of the Centennial of the Birth of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, held in Caracas in 1883, and to which he sends two works: < i>Allegory of the regenerated republic and The delivery of the invincible flag of Numancia to the unnamed battalion. This last piece earns him a silver medal. The work is preserved in the Bolivarian Museum of Caracas.

The Crespo government grants him a pension to carry out his studies in Europe in 1885. For this reason he traveled to Paris in the company of Martín Tovar y Tovar, to enroll in the Julián Academy, where Emilio Boggio and Cristobal Rojas. At this academy he receives classes from the French artist Jean-Paul Laurens.

His first great success occurred in Paris at Le Salon des Artistes Français in 1887. Encouraged by his teacher Jean-Paul Laurens, Michelena presented a canvas titled L'Enfant Malade i> (The Sick Child), with which he was awarded the gold medal in his second class. The National Art Gallery (Caracas) preserves a sketch of this piece, in a smaller size, made by the artist in 1886.

Between 1885 and 1889 he painted successively: An Electoral Visit (1886), Charity (1887), The Young Mother and Carlotta Corday on the way to the scaffold (1889). With this last work he obtained a gold medal in his first class at the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1889). That same year he unexpectedly returned to Venezuela and was received with signs of joy. After a season of social success in Caracas, he celebrated his marriage with Lastenia Tello Mendoza (1886-1958) and returned to Paris. In 1890 he was hired by L. Conquet's publishing house to illustrate the edition of the book Hernani, by Victor Hugo. That year he received a commission from the Venezuelan Government to paint Vuelvan caras, a painting that would be given to the municipality of New York in gratitude for the distinctions received by General José Antonio Páez during his exile in that city.

In this second stay in Paris he painted The Broken Rod (1892) and Pentesilea (1891), main works of this period. Having fallen ill with tuberculosis, he returned to Venezuela in 1892 on the advice of his doctors; His success awaits him in Caracas, where he becomes the fashionable portraitist and official painter of Joaquín Crespo. He participated in the Exhibition commemorating the centenary of the birth of Mariscal Sucre in 1895, for which he painted his Death of Sucre in Berruecos. The following year he presented his Miranda in la Carraca (1896 too early), on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the death of the precursor of Independence. That year he began the decoration of the Miraflores Palace, residence of the Crespo family.

Arturo Michelena died in Caracas on July 29, 1898, at the age of thirty-five, suffering from tuberculosis, leaving behind numerous unfinished works.

Works

• The paje (1872)
• Delivery of the Victorious Flag of Numance (1883)
• The queseras of the middle (1885)
• The sick child (1896)
• Equestrian Portrait of Bolivar (1888)
• The young mother (1889)
• Come on, come on. (1890)
• Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre (1895)
• The Liberator in campaign suit (1895)
• Miranda in La Carraca (1896)
• Cascada de Catuche (1898)
• Last dinner (1898)

Recognitions

• His remains were transferred to the National Pantheon on 29 July 1948.
• In 1961 his workshop at the Urapal corner was acquired by the Venezuelan State and converted into the Arturo Michelena Museum in 1963.

• The airport of his native city, Valencia, in Venezuela, bears the name of Arturo Michelena international airport.

• In their hometown, Valencia, the School of Plastic Arts and a university bear their name ad honorem: Arturo Michelena and the Arturo Michelena University.