![\"Gorg_blau\"](\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gorg_blau.jpg\")
<\/a>El Gorg Blau (Escorca, Majorca) as it looked before 1904. Source: http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Gorg_blau.jpg<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n This place in Majorca, which was very popular because of the attention paid to it by painters and writers, disappeared in 1971 as a result of the construction of the reservoir of the same name<\/a>. The stream that passed through it, however, still flows between rock faces of up to three hundred metres high.<\/p>\n The Blue Pool<\/a><\/em> is the title of the stained glass triptych that concludes the first part of the visit to the museum\u2019s new Modern Art presentation. The work, designed in 1911 by the landscape painter Joaquim Mir<\/a> and produced by the Rigalt i Granell<\/a> stained glass workshop, the most prestigious in Modernista<\/em> Barcelona, catches the visitor\u2019s eye for its beauty and monumentality.<\/p>\n Joaquim Mir. The Blue Pool<\/em><\/a>, around 1911. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya<\/p><\/div>\n The three panels that make up this large stained glass triptych feature an exuberant and paradisiacal landscape, very colourful and with a wealth of detail<\/strong>. In one of the side panels, a couple of shepherds are conversing beside the flock. In the background of the scene, the brightness of a starry night illuminates a very narrow gorge that is reflected in the water of a lake. It is, almost certainly, an idealized image of the Gorg Blau beauty spot, which Joaquim Mir would have seen during his crucial sojourn in Majorca, from 1900 to 1904.<\/p>\n The stained glass triptych designed by Mir is outstanding for various reasons. Firstly, it is one of the very few forays that the painter made in the field of applied arts and interior decoration<\/strong>. The stained glass triptych was part of the decoration that Mir did for his uncle Avel\u00b7l\u00ed Trinxet\u2019s new house<\/a> in the Eixample district, a Modernista<\/em> detached house built by Josep Puig i Cadafalch between 1902 and 1904, no longer standing.<\/p>\n Back view of\u00a0 Casa Trinxet with the garden. Source: https:\/\/ca.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Casa_Trinxet#\/media\/File:Trinxet_21.jpg<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n The Blue Pool<\/em> is also very interesting from the technical and stylistic points of view. The artist designed it using the free, colourful and bold style that characterizes his paintings of the time, when he lived in the countryside around Tarragona (1905-1913). The landscape paintings from those years are in fact considered the best testimony to the originality of the art of Joaquim Mir, the finest painter of the second generation of Modernisme,<\/em> together with Isidre Nonell.<\/p>\n Joaquim Mir. The Jewel<\/em><\/a>, around 1910. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya<\/p><\/div>\n During the time he stayed in the villages around Reus, Mir represented what he saw through juxtaposed splashes of bright colours, creating a very free and personal interpretation of the place that inspired him, very often verging on abstraction. This technique was highly relevant for doing a stained glass mosaic, the form that had become fashionable in Modernista<\/em> Barcelona, because it was easy to match a glass tile to each splash of colour.<\/p>\n Les dames de Cerdanyola<\/em>, a work by Ludwig Dietrich, dated to around 1910, is one of the finest examples of a stained glass mosaic conserved in Catalonia. Museu d’Art de Cerdanyola. Photo: Kippelboy https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Cerdanyola-Les-dames-de-Cerdanyola.jpg<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n When planning The Blue Pool,<\/em> it was Joaquim Mir\u2019s wish to make the job of the master stained glass makers even easier, and in the preparatory sketch he outlined the famous splashes with a dark line, thus clearly indicating the edges of each piece of glass and the points where it was joined to the lead came. The craftsmen of Rigalt i Granell must undoubtedly have thanked him for making it so easy for them.<\/p>\n Besides the technical and artistic details, however, one of the aspects that almost certainly make the stained glass triptych The Blue Pool<\/em> special is its thematic uniqueness. As far as we know, it is the only work in which Mir returns to the themes and landscapes of Majorca after his sudden departure from the island as a result of an accident that nearly cost him his life.<\/p>\n Joaquim Mir had gone to Majorca at the very beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century in search of new landscapes from which to gain inspiration. He arrived knowing that he would be able to do nothing else but paint, thanks to the agreement signed with Avel\u00b7l\u00ed Trinxet. According to this pact, hitherto unheard of in Catalan art, the artist would receive a fixed monthly payment in return for delivering the finished work to his uncle, who would then be in charge of selling it. Mir first lived near the coast, in the company of Santiago Rusi\u00f1ol<\/a> and his family, but he soon discovered the pictorial potential of the Tramuntana mountain range. Obsessed with finding unspoilt landscapes that would enable him to develop a genuine style of his own, he cut himself off from the world and his surroundings and succumbed to a creative fever that was to produce wonderful results.<\/p>\nThe stained glass triptych<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a>Technique and style<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a>The Majorcan landscape<\/strong><\/h3>\n