Arturo Michelena: Master who contributed to the country's historical memory with his works (+seeding)

He was born on June 16, 1863 in the city of Valencia. This Venezuelan artist began painting at a very young age under the guardianship of his father Juan Antonio Michelena. After a few years and given his talent, he obtained a scholarship to study arts in Paris, where he left in the company of Martín Tovar and Tovar, who also went to the French capital to enroll in the Julian Academy, where the Venezuelan Cristóbal Rojas was already there.

His first great success came in Paris at Le Salon des Artistes Français in 1887, when, under the direction of his teacher Jean-Paul Laurens, he presented a canvas entitled L'Enfant Malade (the sick boy), with which he was awarded the Gold Medal, the second of its kind, the highest honor given by that academy to a foreign artist.

After a long list of works that elevated him to become a world-renowned master of realism, he arrived in Caracas in 1890, where he began painting canvases that commemorate important historical events of the libertarian epic led by Bolívar, as well as the decline of great leaders of this process, such as the death of Antonio José de Sucre and a captive Francisco de Miranda in La Carraca.

The Town remembers this master of light and realism whose remains lie in the National Pantheon, evidencing the historical importance of the great Arturo Michelena.

Mazo News Team