Viva el Arte! Barcelona!

This is a little story about our trip to Barcelona, end of May 2017.

We went to Barcelona for work, with plans to visit the Picasso and Miró museums during our short stay. For this, we had to forego several other must-see-when-in-Barcelona attractions; for example, La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, Casa Batlló, etc.

Miró. This was my second visit to Miró’s museums, after seeing the one in Palma de Mallorca, in 2012 (read here: https://violetad.com/2016/06/11/visit-to-the-pilar-jose-miros-garden-in-palma/). I like very much the concept of both of these museums (in Barcelona and in Palma) featuring modern and spacious rooms, built to accommodate huge canvases, sculptures and tapestries; e.g., the Tapestry of the Fundació (1979) (size 750 x 500 cm) (see below).

The museum allows taking photographs in all its collection rooms, which we highly enjoyed in various ways: from capturing hidden elements of paintings, e.g. umbrellas and burned holes in canvases, to incorporating the reflections of our faces into photographs and searching for “ourselves” within the shapes of Miro’s little characters. Just look at the red square in the Woman encircled by a flight of birds in the night (size 336 x 336 cm), shown below. This red square is one of the birds in the night, and judging by the colour – it must be my little sister 🙂

Here are other photos of our interactive approach to Miro’s art collection in Barcelona!

We found many new adorable artworks in the Miró museum in Barcelona. One of the most stunning paintings for me is the “Hair Pursued by Two Planets”, which I like for its simplicity and abstraction featuring a green Universe with orange “hair” of energy and two little black spot-planets, disturbing the orange energy sources.

Picasso. Picasso’s museum in Barcelona is rich in the painter’s very early artworks from his formation period. It is an art treasure for anybody who wants to study Picasso’s artwork through exploring his various artistic phases. Specifically, the exhibited collection includes the portrait of his mother, several beautiful still lives painted in an impressionistic manner, up to the Blue Period. The collection also contains the series Las Meninas which include Picasso’s own studies of Velázquez’s Meninas, and the series of pigeons. We enjoyed commenting on Picasso’s Meninas and admiring little triangular dogs and a flock of pigeons.

Unfortunately, the museum’s policy prohibits taking photographs of artworks. Hence, my advice to everyone with the plan to visit the Miró and Picasso museums in Barcelona would be: at first, visit Picasso, then go and fully enjoy Miró!

Ceramics. Both Miró and Picasso created unique ceramics, which could be considered as a traditional Spanish add-on to their major artistic expressions. Below are photos of several ceramics pieces from the Miró museum (from left to the right): Head (in bronze, 1949), Woman (in bronze, 1949), 2 x Project for a monument (mixed media, 1954), Autoportrait).