Don't
dismiss the Museu Nacional d'Art Catalunya as merely regional.
Indeed, it is regional, but the region is world-class, and its
holdings are of great interest. We visited the Romanesque, Gothic,
and Modernista sections, and, constraining myself, I'll try to do
just those three posts. The Boi valley in the nearby Pyrenees has a
number of Romanesque era churches. In order to preserve the great
murals within these ancient and deteriorating churches, the murals
were carefully removed to MNAC and there brilliantly displayed. It is
one of the largest collections of Romanesque paintings in a museum—we
have seen quite a few in situ—and the pride of the
collection.
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Back story |
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Stoning Stephen |
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Domes and such--sometime entire halls--constructed in the museum to display the murals |
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Feather dancers (angels) straight out of Byzantine style |
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Manual of how to persecute Christians |
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Unfinished bits |
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Recreation of church of St. Climent in Taull |
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There to display the best of the several Pantokrators, indeed, the emblem of MNAC |
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Sculpture too, principally capitals |
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"Um, I was told it is a clothing-optional beach and that our snake friend was welcome too" |
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Desperately needs caption |
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Big G in his mandorla-thiink |
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Even with his foot on the scale, the devil loses...except that "multitudinem damnamdorum, paucitas salvandorum" (a favorite Medieval saying..."many damned, few saved") |
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Also desperately needs caption |
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Santa Maria in Sigena: click to enlarge |
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The discoloration was caused by the 1936 fire; what is remarkable, to us, is the individuality, the emotion depicted in these very early 13th century pix...something Giotto would aspire to generations later |
1 comment:
Wow! These are fabulous. How come we never went here when we were in Barcelona? We were even with a Rick Steves Tour on one trip and didn't go here.
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