The Italian travel diary of the painter Josep Aragay (1916-1917)
Synopsis:
On a train, in a sealed carriage, a twenty-six year old artist from Barcelona travels across France in the midst of the First World War. The young man was Josep Aragay i Blanchar, an artist who had earned great renown within the cultural scene of Catalonia in the Noucentisme period. This was the first time that Aragay had travelled abroad, but his restless spirit and thirst for knowledge had long driven him to strive to realise his great dream of visiting Italy.
Thanks to a municipal grant, in 1916, Aragay journeyed around Italy keeping a travel diary in which he recounted the aesthetic and life experiences he had along the way. Remaining unpublished for almost a century, this text is of great artistic and literary value, giving us a unique insight into the strong influence that Italian Renaissance art had on the artist. To date, there is no other first-hand account that depicts the day-to-day experience of a Catalan intellectual of this period travelling around Italy.
Xavier Castanyer has retrieved the original manuscript to create an edition of the diary that gives us access to a seminal text of Noucentisme. With the inclusion of chapters preceding the main diary, he contextualizes the figure of Aragay within the contemporary Catalan art scene and explains the consequences of a trip that changed the artist’s life.
Critiques and reviews:
Diari de Girona: “Castanyer retrieves the unpublished diary of Josep Aragay’s trip to Italy”. Article in Catalan, 20th December 2013, p. 38:
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El Punt Avui: “Publication of the Noucentista artist Aragay’s Italian travel diary”. Article in Catalan, 20th December 2013, p. 30:
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Vàzquez, Eva: “Publication of Aragay’s Italian travel diary, an unpublished treasure of Noucentisme”. Article in Catalan in El Punt Avui, 29th December 2013, p. 22:
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El Segre: “Aragay and Clarà”. Article in Catalan, 8th January 2014, p. 4:
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Vàzquez, Eva: “The trip to Italy or the voyage across the desert”. Article in Catalan in Cultura, 10th January 2014, p. 27:
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Baix Montseny (Digital): “Presentation in Breda of the unpublished Italian travel diary of the painter Josep Aragay”. Article in Catalan, 10th January 2014:
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Llibreria Geli: “Presentation of the book ‘The Italian travel diary’”. Article in Catalan, 20th December 2013:
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Àgora: “Presentation of the unpublished Italian travel diary of the painter Josep Aragay”. Article in Catalan, 22nd February 2014:
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Palomero, Josep; Segura, José Miguel: “The Italian travel diary of Josep Aragay”. Article in Catalan in El Periódico Mediterraneo. Cuadernos, p. 10:
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Radio i Televisió de Montserrat: The Italian travel diary of the painter Josep Aragay (1916-1917)”. Report in Catalan:
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