Barcelona’s wonderful museums include many that focus on artists and architects of the early 20th century. We are starting to make the rounds and may make return visits to both the Picasso Museum
http://www.museupicasso.bcn.cat/en/
and the Miro Foundation.
A great deal is made of modernism, but what that is remains puzzling. Definitions suggest that it was a movement that wanted to break with the past. In Barcelona, that meant a rejection of classical and Gothic architecture OR its reworking. Modernism include everything from Gaudi’s extravagant organic shapes to the boxy, white cubes of the Fundacio Miro designed by Spanish architect Josep Lluis Sert.
That’s a lot to put between one set of brackets. I’m starting a page of Barcelona architecture that I will add to from time to time that includes images of interesting things that I see–not all will be modernist, but many will be unusual. Take a look.
The Miro museum doesn’t allow photography in the indoor areas. The collection, donated by Miro, his wife and close friends, is spectacular. Really unusual. Some of Miro’s earlier pieces have emotion jumping off the page (joy, anger, disgust) in a way that I don’t usually feel from looking at art in museums. It’s startling to look at a painting and get a sense of what the artist was feeling at the time. It was a wonderful visit. Before we got to the museum, we made a brief stop (between subway and bus) at the Joan Miro park, where one of his pieces is installed. It is wonderful, really tall and overlooks the entire park. Though there are apartment buildings around most of the park there are a couple of places where you can photograph the sculpture with the sky as your background. The title is Woman with Bird.
Llywindatravels 2022 