Èlia Llach To prepare this project, the artist Èlia Llach (Barcelona, 1976) consulted the collection of the museum’s Cabinet of Drawings and Prints several times. There, what most caught her eye were some drawings by the painter Marià Fortuny (Reus, 1838 –Rome, 1874) classified as ‘Vague Sketches’, an apparently contradictory title referring to sketches that…
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Joan Yeguas One of the sculptures of the Museu Nacional which catches the attention of the public is an image nailed to the cross wearing a tunic and with a beard. Despite this description, this is not a Christ in Majesty crucified. The work was restored by the Area of Restoration and Preventive Conservation, and…
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Mariàngels Fondevila As a good Modernista, following in the footsteps of William Morris, Gaspar Homar was a many-faceted artist; he made furniture, metal objects, mosaics, textiles, marquetry, drawings, he was an antiques dealer and also an amateur photographer. This is confirmed by the recent admission to the Museu Nacional of a collection comprising nearly 68…
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Pablo José Alcoverand Rosa Mayordomo Bread, a brief history From prehistory to the Middle Ages, bread played a decisive role in food. So far, the oldest bread remains have been found in an excavation in Israel. They are 22,500 years old, that is to say, from the Upper Paleolithic period. These prehistoric loaves would be rounded,…
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Ana Diéguez-Rodríguez Some years ago I had the opportunity to visit the art storerooms of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya on Montjuïc. I was accompanying the conservator of the museum’s Renaissance and Baroque Department, Joan Yeguas, and the group of students from the University of Lleida on the Master’s degree course in the cataloguing…
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Francesc Quílez Only on very few occasions during his career as an artist did Fortuny develop the theme of the female nude. It is a genre towards which his attitude was always preventive and for which he felt no special predilection, except for two highly iconic productions that over time have become two of his…
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Esther Fuertes In times of confinement and social distancing we give even more value to methodologies such as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) that have helped make museums a place to dialogue, to share emotions, and to be with others. The VTS are part of the mediation actions with our visitors carried out by the museum’s…
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Céline Mülich Visiting museums in Barcelona and writing about them is my daily business, an ordinary activity that lately has been converted into something really special. With the museums being closed for weeks, we had to get back to virtual experiences, such as consulting the web, online collections, podcasts, videos, social media or virtual visits…
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Sandra Figueras We have now spent more than 50 days confined in our homes by the Covid-19 health crisis, a new scenario and a reality that we are gradually getting used to. The boundaries of what we thought was possible have expanded and at the same time our everyday world has grown smaller, cut off…
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Maria Clua These days we are living in a state of emergency or crisis that obliges us to adopt new measures of control and safety at all levels. We weren’t used to living confined within the walls of our homes, working from home, going out to the street only for minimum tasks, and protecting ourselves…
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