Leonardo Alenza

Leonardo Alenza was a Spanish painter and engraver who was born on November 6, 1807 in Madrid, Spain. His father, Valentín, was a government employee and amateur poet, who succeeded in having some poems published in the Diario de Madrid. His mother died around 1813, when he was only six or seven. In 1817, his father remarried. His step-mother was only eleven years older than he was. Soon after, the family moved from the busy neighborhood where they lived, to a quieter street near a Jesuit convent. He probably began his higher education there, at the Colegio Imperial de la Compañía de Jesús². In 1819, at age 16, he was enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando, where he initially studied with the painters Zacarías González Velázquez, Juan Antonio Ribera and José Aparicio, as well as the engraver Vicente Peleguer and the sculptor Esteban de Agreda. He finished his studies there with José Madrazo. He remained attached to the Academy until 1833, when he received a commission from the Ayuntamiento of Madrid to paint an allegorical picture of Isabella becoming Queen at the age of three. The following year, he created a cenotaph honoring the late King Fernando VII, composed of five panels done in grisaille³. In 1838, he began providing drawings for the Semanario Pintoresco Español, published by Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, and exhibited some capriccios at the Academy. Two years later, he collaborated with the Semanario to produce illustrations for a new edition of the novel Gil Blas and the complete works of Francisco de Quevedo. He also created decorations for the popular Café de Levante⁴. In 1842, the Academy awarded him the title of "Académico de Mérito" for his painting of David cutting off the head of Goliath⁴. He was a follower of Francisco Goya and adopted his style of satire and social criticism in some of his works. His best known painting is Satire on Romantic Suicide (1839), which mocks the romantic idealization of death and shows a group of people laughing at a man who has hanged himself from a tree. He also painted scenes of Spanish life and customs, such as The Toothpuller (1836), Distributing Soup (1838) and The Triumph of Bacchus (1840). He also painted religious and historical subjects, such as The Death of Luis Daoíz y Torres (1831), which depicts one of the heroes of the Dos de Mayo Uprising against Napoleon's troops. This would be his last major work, as he had been suffering from tuberculosis for several years and was in very poor health. Despite this, he managed to serve as a professor for a few months. Meanwhile, he was living in a cow barn, because he had become convinced that the fumes there were beneficial. Nothing helped, however, and he died on June 30, 1845 at his home in Madrid at the age of 38. He had become impoverished by then and his friends had to intervene to prevent his burial in a common grave². He left behind a legacy of artistic excellence and passion for painting that inspired many fans and filmmakers around the world.