17/11/2021 Artworks
Josep Moscardó was born in Barcelona in 1953. A postmodern painter and sculptor, his work depicts daily scenes of his native Catalonia. Moscardó’s paintings portray the characteristic coastal towns of northern Spain by day and by night. He makes great use of space and we often find ourselves looking from unique perspectives upon a cropped scene depicting figures. These casual scenes remind us of the well-known paintings by impressionists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir where we glimpse the lives of Parisians enjoying the city’s parks and streets. Moscardo’s style is certainly influenced by post-impressionists too; we can see this through his use of Colourism, a technique which employs intense colour as the principal means of composition.
Lot: 553 is titled ‘Callella de Parafrugell’ after the town it depicts. Not far from Figures, where Salvador Dalí was born, Moscardó shows us a snapshot of the small sandy beaches behind which the town begins to form. The artist paints a scene showing the habitual lives of vacationers and locals going about their daily tasks. In the forefront of the painting, we observe a woman sitting at the end of the pier looking out as the boats set out into the sparkling blue sea. A woman on her balcony tends to her plants, while below her several others pull out their sun chairs and throw back their arms in response to this sudden wave of relaxation which washes over the entire town. As viewers, we are privy to the ease and moderate tempo of the town, which makes us long for that warm sunny day. A lovely painting overall, which would certainly bring warmth and a sense of calm to any room it might find itself in.