{"id":7136,"date":"2016-06-30T10:46:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T10:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=7136"},"modified":"2020-12-17T12:59:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T12:59:15","slug":"the-albums-of-bellezas-beauties-by-the-photographer-joan-marti-i-centellas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/the-albums-of-bellezas-beauties-by-the-photographer-joan-marti-i-centellas\/","title":{"rendered":"The albums of Bellezas (Beauties) by the photographer Joan Mart\u00ed i Centellas"},"content":{"rendered":"
Yolanda Ruiz<\/h6>\n
\"The<\/a>

The Sea Wall that began to be demolished in 1881 to enlarge the Port of Barcelona<\/p><\/div>\n

The photographer Joan Mart\u00ed i Centellas, who was born in L\u2019Alcora in 1832 and died in Camprodon in 1902, began his professional career in Barcelona, where he worked in different places according to the Directorio de fot\u00f3grafos en Espa\u00f1a<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

He is the author of three of the most renowned picture albums in the history of photography in Catalonia: Bellezas de Barcelona<\/em> (1874), Bellezas de Montserrat<\/em> (1875) and Bellezas de Gerona <\/em>(1875<\/strong>), published by Pere Vives Llorens. The ones of Barcelona and Girona contain a magnificent selection of monuments and buildings of the period in both cities, while the one of Montserrat is inspired by the iconography of the sacred place, and is a world away from the urban landscapes that appear in the other two.<\/p>\n

These photographs have to be understood in the context of the period: in the last quarter of the 19th<\/sup> century, thanks to the technological progress represented by the use of glass plate negatives,<\/strong> many photographers who up to then had based their business on studio portraits decided to go outside and take photographs of monuments and landscapes. The album was an ideal way of presenting them<\/strong>, although it was not always the one most used, seeing as it was a refined product that required a certain degree of financial solvency, and it was more usual for single photographs to be sold to the general public periodically.<\/p>\n

For the publication of the \u201cBellezas\u201d, various methods were chosen:<\/p>\n