Margarita Gil Röesset (1908-1932) was a Spanish sculptor, illustrator and poet who was part of the Generation of 27. Her talents and self-taught abilities have been attributed to the prodigious and extraordinary, her intellectual gifts were surprising.
Margrita Gil's life was short, however she managed to do an impeccable and abundant job, which perhaps has been forgotten. Her works as a poet, sculptor, and illustrator were great. His sculptures were made of different materials, while as a draftsman he used symbolism.
In the poetic area it is known that perhaps his greatest work was his personal diary. Before ending his life, he did it first with almost all of his work, but his sister rescued several, including his intimate confessions with lyrical characteristics.
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Margarita was born on March 3, 1908 in Las Rozas-Madrid, in the nucleus of a cultured family with money. Due to difficulties during his birth, his life was limited, but his mother did everything for him to live, and give him a promising future full of opportunities..
His parents were Julián Gil, of a military profession, and Margot Röesset, who dedicated herself to the education of her four children from home. It was she who instilled in them a passion for art, and also influenced them to be cultured and speak several languages. Margarita had three siblings: Consuelo, Pedro and Julián.
Margarita Gil demonstrated her qualities as a draftsman and writer since she was a child. At the age of seven he had the skill to produce a story for his mother, he wrote it and also made the drawings. In 1920, when he was only twelve years old, he was in charge of the illustration of The golden child, a book written by his sister.
At the age of fifteen, in 1923, together with his older sister, Consuelo, who was three years older, they published the story Rose des bois, in the city of Paris. It was at this time that sculpture began to take an important place in his work as an artist..
Margarita's talent for sculpture made her mother worry and lead her into good hands. Margot wanted her daughter to take classes with the sculptor Víctor Macho, who was surprised by her unique gift, and refused to teach her to prevent her genius from being hindered.
Gil's sculptural work did not have any type of influence, or predominance of other sculptors or movements, because she was absolutely self-taught, that is, she learned by herself. His works were unprecedented, and there were no comparative features in them, he was unique.
Sisters Gil, Margarita and Consuelo, showed admiration for the writer Zenobia Camprubí, wife of the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. The happiness was complete when in 1932 Margarita had the opportunity to meet them both, without imagining that she would fall madly in love with the writer.
Immediately afterwards, he dedicated himself to making a sculpture of his admired Zenobia. Soon after, the young Margarita began to feel overwhelmed by her feelings towards a married man, perhaps her condition as a devoted believer and religious led her to feel guilty for a forbidden love.
The feeling of an unattainable and unsustainable love led Margarita Gil Röesset to make a desperate and tragic decision. Youth and inexperience led her to attempt on her life on July 28, 1932, when she committed suicide by shooting herself in the head..
The sculptor was buried in the cemetery of the town where she was born, Las Rozas, along with her parents. However, the story of a bomb that fell on his grave during the war tells that his inscription was destroyed, which today makes it difficult to locate..
The newspaper that came into the hands of Juan Ramón Jiménez through the action of its own author, was later stolen from the writer's house in his time of exile, as were many other documents and works. As a testimony of her love, Margarita wrote the following for Jiménez:
"... And I don't want to live without you anymore, no I don't want to live without you ... you, how can you live without me, you must live without me ...".
"My love is infinite ... the sea is infinite ... infinite loneliness, I with them, with you! Tomorrow you know, me with the infinite ... Monday, night. "... In death nothing separates me from you ... How I love you".
After the death of Margarita, both Zenobia and Juan Ramón were affected. So the poet decided to publish the diary that she had given him, and asked him to read later. However, events such as the departure from Spain and the robbery of his home, did not allow it to come to light..
Before some fragments were published in some print media, and his niece Margarita Clark also did it in the novel Bitter Light. Years later, in 2015, Carmen Hernández Pinzón, his relative, managed to get the edition of Juan Ramón Jiménez published, entitled: Loam.
Margarita Gil's diary not only contained the expression of her love for Juan Ramón Jiménez. She also addressed the relationship she had with her parents, and how they influenced her to do certain jobs; perhaps because of his young age, they assumed that he was not capable of making decisions.
Just as the sculptor sculpted Zenobia Camprubí, she also wished to do it with her great love. However, as she herself wrote in the diary, her father did not want to, and when finishing the sculpture of Jiménez's wife, he must have started with some drawings of The Quijote.
"Oh discouragement, disappointment, life ... My father has told me seriously ... irrevocable: 'Marga, you are going to finish Zenobia's head ... but finish it ... to immediately start with Don Quixote and until you finish it ... you don't do anything at all ... we're'!".
"And Juan Ramón, dad!".
"... Man ... later, by September, when you finish Don Quixote ... at the same time ... by no means ...".
This tribute that Juan Ramón Jiménez paid to Margarita was reduced, but loaded with painstaking dedication. The newspaper Loam It consisted of about sixty-eight pages, mostly the original papers, accompanied by some writings by Jiménez and Zenobia Camprubí.
Margarita Gil Röesset began to develop her talents as a child, and she did so with unique maturity and dedication.
Margarita Gil was a poet, through her personal and intimate diary she left her deepest feelings and passions reflected. His lyrics were anguished and desperate, written without any type of metric or rhythm, they were only the expression of what he carried inside.
Margarita's sculptural work was unmatched, because when she learned by herself, she did not receive any type of influence. His sculptures were within the features of modernism and avant-garde, they were always innovative and original.
Margarita carved in wood, granite and stone. With a use of well-cared forms, and with infallible precision, his sculptures also had deep meanings, related to life, creation, all the product of his cultured education..
Some scholars of her sculptural work, including the expert Ana Serrano, affirm that in 2015 there were only about sixteen figures of Margarita Gil left, because ten more were replicas. The connoisseur of the sculptor's art asserted:
"They are like ghosts, big ... strong, granite, avant-garde ... a male critic would say virile".
The following are his best known sculptures:
- Maternity (1929).
- The girl who smiles.
- Forever.
- Adam and Eve (1930).
- Group (1932).
- Zenobia Camprubí (1932).
- The golden child (1920).
- Rose des bois (1923).
- Children's songs (1932).
For a time it has been believed that the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was inspired by Margaret to illustrate The little Prince (1943). This matter is due to the drawings that Gil made for the book Children's songs of his sister Consuelo that was published a year after the suicide of the writer.
The similarity of the drawings in the classic work of the writer and also a French pilot with those of the Spanish Margarita Gil, could perhaps be due to the various visits that Exupéry made to Spain. Ana Serrano, the student of the work of sculpture, affirms that the two got to know each other.
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