Saturday, December 24, 2011

Day 206 - Caixaforum, MNAB, and the Fundacio Joan Miro

Another exhaustive museum day, but very enlightening to be exposed to so many varieties of art in this city!

The first museum I visited was the Caixaforum which is a free museum at all times. I believe all the art showcased is usually from the permanent collection of the Caixa Bank. There are 5 salons at the museum, which used to be an old factory, each showcasing a different exhibition. Today, only 3 of them were open for viewing. The first I visited was a collection of Impressionist art on loan from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. There was art from Renoir, Monet, Sisley, and a bunch of other artists. The second salon I visited was an exhibition on the Ballets Russes, a movement of ballet that was popular in Europe in the early 20th century. There was archived footage of some of the performances, as well as some artwork and costumes that were worn by the dancers.

I headed onto the next museum, which was nearby - the MNAC (Museu Nacional D'art de Catalunya). This museum housed an extensive collection of art ranging from Romantic to Gothic to Baroque to Modern Art. The Romantic section had huge murals on display in built-in church apses throughout the floor, along with a bunch of other religious Christian art. The Gothic section also had a lot of religious art, but more on furniture and altar pieces and less as huge murals. We saw more paintings in the Baroque and Modern sections, all in various styles that were popular throughout the decades - ranging from impressionism to neoclassicism to noucentisme to surrealism. There was one last temporary exhibition of a collection of lost camera rolls that were found in a suitcase that documented much of the Spanish Civil War. I briefly walked through this section since I was again getting restless...

Last and final museum of the day was the Fundacio Joan Miro, a wonderful exhibition solely of his art, again showing the changes in his styles throughout the years (surrealism to abstract to expressionism...), due to the changes in the artistic world, the political climate, and his own personal life. His style of art is very unique, similar to the uniqueness of Picasso, if that makes any sense. He developed a certain style of creating art that was recurrent through many of his pieces, including the use of stars, moons, sexual organs, eyes, snakes, and birds. It was pretty difficult to see some of the pictures he was drawing in his strange and abstract way, but the audio/visual guides definitely helped.

Going to three museums in one day is overload...Writing this entry was difficult because it's already so hard to retain all the information that I thought I'd remember when going through all the exhibits. It's a little frustrating, but I want to see as much as I can in my last few days here!

Caixaforum

Caixaforum - Impressionism Exhibition

MACBA - Romantic

Bartolome Bermejo -  Taules d'un retaule de Crist



Maria Fortuny - La Cicaria

Joaquim Sunyer - Les Germanes Ribas

Josep De Togores - Bust de Dona

Salvador Dali - Retrat del meu pare

Fundacio Joan Miro

Fundacio Joan Miro


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