Augusto Barcia

In 1943 Augusto Barcia began his fine art studies at the Universidad de Chile Escuela de Bella Artes de la Universidad de Chile. During these studies, some of his professors were Augusto Eguiluz, Pablo Burchard and Gregorio de la Fuente, all Masters whose paintings had a compromise with reality, more than its translation into purely figurative signs and forms. The influence of Pablo Burchard, head of the Montparnasse Group, was really important to him.

The Burchard style, pure and delicate, a transition between the atmospheric and slight painting of Juan Francisco Gonzalez and the new tendencies, would drive him to a simple painting of abstract harmonies, not worried about a clear thematic.

His first works were focused into the human figure but later he discovered the greatness and beauty of landscape, its infinite spaces and beautiful and changing effects of light.

He began a very productive period with many exhibitions and contests. His first exhibition was in 1962 at the Sala de Arte del Banco de Chile.

It was a period of studies in search of a more ductile and flexible color. He wanted to take out from reality a rather romantic painting and to confront it to modernity, as the impressionists did in the past. His work became more schematic.

He intended to give a global vision without losing the sense of coherence. The Forties Generation, that came from the Montparnasse Group had an enormous significance to him. The reality allowed him to see forms in its strict essence and to represent it within values adjusted to basic principles, still involved with these artists whose master was Cézanne.

Since then, he based his work in the independence of color and adapted it to the shapes of every landscape. His work became subjective, leaving behind traditional and recognizable elements. In his work there are different ways of representation, one based on color values, the other in contrasts, and the last one that only recognizes the hierarchy of color.

This is his way. He feels the force of color, the same force that made Cézanne consider more color than light; color went further, color was mass and volume. His painting has a tendency to simplify the form into a clear contour. He looks forward to a deep and vivid expression of nature, each brush stroke, each color is trying to express the dramatic fight for learning how the spirit starts to appear.

The spirit is the real composer, the one who looks for an essence, for a whole position. This spirit is the soul of the artist who finds the elements to express itself coherently through subjective images. For this reasons he has been identified as an expressionist painter, as Edward Munch, the precursor of the Expressionist movement. •

Augusto Barcia in his workshop

Augusto Barcia in his workshop

References

Barcia by Barcia, 1998 Edición ATG

External links