Tag: modern art

Joaquim Mir & Picasso: Portraits, wild and solar

Eduard Vallès If there is a Catalan artist who evokes the painting of light like few others, it is Joaquim Mir (Barcelona 1873-1940). For example, the subliminal and almost dreamlike landscapes of the coasts of Mallorca, or the relentless sun over the landscapes of Tarragona, incorporate plastic values that transfer the painting to a high…

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Author: Eduard Vallès

Tokyo: The last Station

Anna Carreras i Mireia Campuzano The exhibition Barcelona: City of Artistic Miracles, for which the Museu Nacional loaned about 60 works, ended its tour of Japan suddenly at the end of March, due to the impact of COVID-19. Even so, the exhibition was very well received by the public. Organized by the Nagasaki Prefectural Art…

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Author: Anna Carreras

Gaspar Homar, amateur photographer

Gaspar Homar fotografia

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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Author: Mariàngels Fondevila

Fortuny’s Carmen Bastián: problems with its reception and interpretation

Fortuny’s Carmen Bastián

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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Author: Francesc Quílez

Artists Living and Creating at Home: Days of Confinement

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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Author: Sandra Figueras

Mariano Andreu in the Museu Nacional

Mariano Andreu pintor

Eduard Vallès Since the end of last year the permanent rooms of the Museu Nacional have been exhibiting a couple of paintings by Mariano Andreu (Mataró, 1888 – Biarritz, 1976). Until recently, Andreu’s painting work was not present in the collections of the Museu Nacional (there are a couple of drawings and a print in…

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Author: Eduard Vallès

Concerning “Fabrica de salchichon de Vich Juan Torra” (1896), by Alexandre de Riquer

fabrica de salchichon riquer

Adela Laborda In 1893 the artist, writer, collector and pioneer of Modernista graphic arts in Catalonia, Alexandre de Riquer (Calaf, 1856 – Palma, 1920), put a masterpiece up for sale that is now in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya’s Renaissance and Baroque collection: The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1644), by Jusepe de Ribera, “lo…

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Author: Adela Laborda

The history, legend and representations of Saint Eulàlia in the collections of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

Santa Eulàlia capçalera

Milena Pi Historical and legendary events are interwoven in the figure of Saint Eulàlia, whose saint’s day we are celebrating this week. We thought this would be a good opportunity to take a closer look at the historical sources, the origins of her cult, and the symbolism that this relic has for Barcelona and the…

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Author: Milena Pi

The periodic table through the rooms of the museum II

Estratigrafia d'una obra de Carracci

Núria Oriols We continue our visit to the museum’s rooms that we began in last week’s article. Renaissance and Baroque art rooms Preparations with clays As we move into a new room, we observe another change in the type of format. In the different sections of this period the majority of paintings are on canvas….

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Author: Núria Oriols

Francesc Pausas and Cuba

Membres del Centre Català, La Havana, 1922

Sílvia Lanceta and Juli G. Pausas In this article we continue to discover the figure of the Catalan Modernist painter Francesc Pausas i Coll, discreetly recognised, and who we started to get to know in the article Maria Sampere and Francesc Pausas in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya a few months ago. Last time…

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Author: Z_ Guest blogger