January 13, 2024
We snagged tickets to Sagrada Familia for 11:45 am and to The Picasso Museum for 3 pm. We decided to walk and saw some incredible buildings along the way.
The Cathedral is a combination of Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau and Modernista architecture. The two main architects were Antoni Gaudi and Francisco de Paula del Villar. The doors on the Nativity side of the Cathedral were created by Japanese artist, Etsuro Sotoo. Sotoo, a sculptor, moved to Barcelona in 1978. He mastered Spanish and converted to Catholicism. He has spent a large portion of his life laboring on the completion of the Cathedral.
The interior of the Cathedral is magnificent in a totally unexpected way. The thought, planning and imagination that went into representing the story of Christ is in the tiniest details. The cathedral was designed in the traditional cross configuration.
We had talked about taking a taxi to the Picasso Museum, but decided to walk since we had plenty of time. The Picasso Museum is in the Southern part of the city, close to the Balearic Sea and the Gothic quarter of the city.
Miró went to Paris in March of 1920. He was expecting to have his first solo show there and arrived with a package from Picasso’s mother to be delivered to her son. This was the start of the friendship between the two men. Picasso gave Miró support, advice and even recommended Miró to his art dealer, Paul Rosenberg.
Both artists worked vigorously into their 80’s and 90’s, with Picasso sometimes completing 5 painting a day. Their work diverged during their later years with Picasso’s work pushing the limits of, but never abandoning reality. While Miró’s paintings became more symbolic as he developed a language all his own, a universal language. The painting above shows a woman totem with a bird to her right and a star to her left showing the connection of earth to the heavens according to the exhibitions material.
This painting of the classic family configuration displays Picasso’s evolving sensuality in the nude woman.
Picasso presented his ceramic work publicly in 1948 in an issue of Cahiers d’art, in which Miró also appeared.
The exhibit was very large and this is just a small sample of the many paintings by Picasso and Miró.
The Picasso Permanent collection was gifted by the artist to the City of Barcelona in 1970. This donation included earlier student work. Many of his pieces were kept at the family home in Barcelona.
Dusk was moving in when we left the museum. Back to Parc de la Ciutadella where we caught a taxi back to the hotel. At that point it was a 48 minute walk back to the hotel, which we just didn’t have energy for doing in the dark.
We managed to get a reservation to the Restaurant Antigua, probably because we were eating early at 6 pm instead of the European dining hours of 8 to 9 pm. It was only a 9 minute walk from the hotel.
Happy to be sitting down with a bottle of wine.
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