Josep Berga i Boix
1837–1914 · Spanish landscape painter, co-founder of the Olot School
Joseph Berga y Boix (La Pinya, Vall de Bas, 1837-Olot, 1914) was a Catalan landscape painter known as the «Avi Berga» ("Grandfather Berga"). Influenced by the Barbizon School, he founded the Olot School of Painting together with his friend Joaquín Vayreda. The group made landscape a genre in its own right and gained a reputation beyond the Barcelona art scene.
Born into a peasant family, he was able to study thanks to two exclaustrated friars in his valley. After training in drawing in Olot and spending time in the seminary in Girona, he left the priesthood and turned to painting. Because of his writings in a Carlist newspaper he had to go into exile in France, where he came into contact with the Barbizon tradition and began painting outdoors in the Pyrenees. In 1877 he was appointed director of the Olot School of Drawing.
His painting shows a marked realism and focuses on the valleys around Olot, the Fluviá river and the Puigsacalm. He depicted rural life, in which the peasant is part of the landscape, often wearing the barretina. He also made portraits and genre figures, though with less impact than Vayreda. As a maker of religious sculpture he took part in the workshop «Santos de Olot», although very little of his sculpture survives.
His legacy includes the training of sculptors such as Josep Clarà and Miguel Blay. In 2000 he was named an illustrious son of Olot.
Works (2)
This painting by Joseph Berga y Boix, dated 1877 and executed in oil, belongs to the landscape genre and takes Catalonia as its subject. The record offers no further details about its commission or reception. Its title, Sometent a Catalunya, refers to the sometent, the traditional call to arms by which communities came together to defend their territory, so the scene can be read as an evocation of that custom.
Landscape painted by Joseph Berga y Boix in 1902 on cardboard, a support often used for studies and sketches. Its small size suggests a studio work or a direct study from nature, though its commission and context are not documented. It is held at the Biblioteca Museo Víctor Balaguer.
Where to see the work
- Girona Museum of Art Girona · 1
- Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer Barcelona · 1