Pedro Delso was a versatile artist. He showed early interest and aptitude for drawing, and already as a four-year-old he won a local drawing competition. He developed rapidly in the art of drawing and painting, and at just 15 years old he was admitted as a student at the Royal Academy of Arts in Barcelona.
He mastered many styles, but is best known for being the originator of triangulism. The triangular shape is repeated in much of his art, from paintings to sculptures and reliefs. Like Cubism, triangulism is supposed to create an impression of three-dimensionality, but the two art forms are still very different. The triangle is the purest geometric shape, and it is a demanding exercise to create a depth effect only by limiting the contours of triangular shapes.
This image describes well how the triangle shape can create depth in an image.
Drawings and paintings
Like with so many other artists, it started with drawing, also for Pedro Delso. But even after many years with the paintbrush, he found joy in drawing. These could be some critical drawings of situations that occupied him, or they were caricatures of fantasy scenes. Pedro Delso was in his childhood very interested in stories about witches and sorcery. Later in life he was introduced to the nordic trolls and vikings. Both influenced much of his art. Another great inspiration was Don Quijote, who appears both in pictures and as sculptures.
Delso mastered many styles, and in his artistic life was involved in both landscape, abstractions and portraits. Eventually, it was triangulism that set the tone, but in recent years, the rounder lines also came into his pictures.
This oil chalk drawing combines both the triangular shape and the rounder links that were more expressed in recent years.
Ceramic
Ceramic has been known since ancient times. First and foremost as utensils such as jars and vessels. But already from about the year 3000 BC. ceramic has been found as artistic decorations. Pedro Delso learned early on the various techniques for shaping and decorating ceramics. He worked hard to find the best camp, and to make the best icing. His ceramic works include both wall decorations, free-standing heads and decoration of barrels with cold needles.
One of Delso's many ceramic heads. Here clearly inspired bu the Nordic Viking.
Iron
The Spanish blacksmiths have long been described as not only good craftsmen, but also skilled artists. From the 17th century, iron was less valued in art, largely because it was used to make weapons, but also because iron was mainly used for machines and tools.
Pedro Delso saw the possibility of using iron in the service of art, and in many cases it was the reuse of iron that had served as a commodity. He liked to go to the scrapyard and pick parts he could use in his sculptures. Car and machine parts, chains and springs were saved from recasting and gave new life to imaginative figures and installations.
The sculpture "El Pintor" is Delso's self-portrait. Assembled from scrap metal and car parts.
Most of Delso's art exhibits joy and playfulness. Whether it is a painting, a ceramic head or a sculpture, it is easy to imagine that the artist had a playful and humorous mind. A tour of the large museum area will get most people in a good mood.