Category: General

The Baroque in the Solsonès: get to know it in person

Cristina Sanjust Every quarter, the Amics del Museu Nacional take a trip to know better the Catalan heritage: “The museum’s walks”. The last one took them to discover the Solsonès baroque legacy. Cristina Sanjust was their guide and now she explains to us her experience of this visit from the inside. As a tourist guide…

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Author: Z_ Guest blogger

A Gothic panel by Lluís Dalmau, a new addition to the museum’s collection

Cèsar Favà On 31 May the Decapitation of Saint Baudilus, by Lluís Dalmau, originally in Sant Boi de Llobregat, was sold at auction and purchased by the museum thanks to funding by the Palarq Foundation. From this week and coinciding with Museu Nacional Night 2017, it is temporarily on display in room 17 of the…

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Author: Cèsar Favà

Visitor Journey Mapping: walking in our visitors’ shoes

Conxa Rodà In museums and organisations we often talk of the need of better knowing our visitors, our users, with the aim of offering them a better service, matching the needs and expectations of the public and, all in all, enriching the experience. Beyond surveys, visitor studies, A/B testing, defining personas, analysing data, etc., what…

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Author: Conxa Rodà

The museum’s collection of photographic portraits of artists

Alícia Cornet The museum conserves a collection of portraits of artists taken in the most important photographic studios in Barcelona in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. In this article we shall talk about four of these studios: the Napoleón, and those of Antoni Esplugas, Joan Martí Centellas and Pau Audouard. Photographic innovations Three…

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Author: Alícia Cornet

What you need to know about ‘Els dolços indrets de Catalunya’ (Attractive Places in Catalonia), by Pere Torné Esquius

Elena Llorens Eduard Vallès It is a fact that in Catalan art history books there are always a few lines set aside for Torné Esquius in the chapter about Noucentisme. This is so due largely to the impact —and subsequent spread— of his album Dolços indrets de Catalunya, which saw the light in Barcelona at…

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Author: Elena Llorens

The scattered patrimony of the Jewish cemetery of Montjuïc

Jordi Casanovas Surprisingly, once the Jewish cemetery had disappeared as a legal entity, and after intensive reuse of its gravestones as building material, the presence of large blocks with Hebrew inscriptions on them in one part of the mountain of Montjuïc still caught the attention of many people who were walking around it. Hence the…

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Author: Jordi Casanovas

Torné Esquius, an artist conformed to none of the official canons

Eduard Vallès and Elena Llorens A monographic exhibition on Pere Torné Esquius posed a challenge. Although exhibitions had been mounted previously, neither his life nor his work as a whole had ever been studied in great detail. Torné Esquius is by no means an unknown in Catalan art. It could be said that he is…

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Author: Eduard Vallès

An Almoravid thurible in Romanesque art

This week’s blog includes a version of the text published in the blog of the Museum of the Alhambra, which links Romanesque works in different museums, including ours, to an Almoravid thurible in the Alhambra’s collection. Museum of the Alhambra One of the most outstanding bronzes to be found exhibited in the Museum of the…

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Author: Z_ Guest blogger

10 Key takeaways from Museums and the Web 2017

Conxa Rodà Our team at the National Museum have been active in several ways in this edition of Museums and the Web, held in Cleveland from 19th to 22 April: being part of the program Committee, members of the Jury of the Awards and giving 2 presentations: a 3-hours workshop on content strategy and a…

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Author: Conxa Rodà

The Parisian Melancholy of Ramon Casas

Martí Casas What story does Ramon Casas want to tell us in the painting Interior of Le Moulin de la Galette? It is one of the most enigmatic works by the great Modernista painter, a master specializing in portraiture who rarely painted complex subjects that could be interpreted in more than one way. The subject…

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Author: Martí Casas