Back from Fundacio Joan Miro
February 12th 2008 21:27
I mentioned in my comment to Fog that Gaudi had grown on me. It all happened yesterday, when most of the major tourist sites were closed, leading me to pick Casa Battlo, Casa Mila (La Pedrera) and Park Guell as my destinations of the day...
I started with the one I had a feeling would most appeal to me, Casa Battlo. What an experience! There are almost no straight lines in the house, which give it a dream-like appearance. The theme is the oceanic world and its organic forms, and it manifests itself in everything from what look like droplets of water on the ceiling to the blue colour that can be seen throughout, getting darker at the top and lighter at the bottom. The lower down you go, the larger the windows become, compensating for less natural light filtering down to them. I couldn´t get enough of the place, and the more I looked, the more details I spotted. The audio guide emphasised that not a detail was out of place, and I believed it.
Casa Mila was the next stop, which is an alluringly wavy building with plenty of irregular features, plenty of interactive guides to Gaudi´s work here and elsewhere, and rooftop sculptures to make you stand in awe.
We then made our way to Park Guell, which seems to be best known for its colourful lizard perching in the middle of a staircase. Indeed it was so popular as a site for photos that I barely saw all of it at the one time. I´ve since bought a T-shirt with a representation of the lizard, so now I can admire it in all its glory wherever I go... The park greets you with two brown buildings, one of which looks like the gingerbread house out of Hansel and Gretel, and the other with a long spire extending many metres above the ground. Continuing past the lizard, there is a large red building on the left with quirky rhombus-shaped windows, and a large sitting area which overlooks Barcelona on the right. It is bordered by one long recurring bench with fragments of ceramic tiles of all sorts of colours and patterns brought together in an eclectic symphony bordered by white. There is no one curve of the bench that looks like the rest, so I walked by it all, taking photos every few seconds as I went.
I was exhausted, but happy. We dined on some biryani and butter chicken curry at our local ´Bombay Spicy´ restraunt, as it was one of the few that was open before 8pm. The Spaniards begin their dinner after 8 at the earliest, but we weren´t used to that schedule and nourishment was required. We went to bed at about 10pm, just when the locals are starting to contemplate going outside to party, and slept fitfully.
Today began with another canya, and two hours of the spectacular Fundacio Joan Miro. Have I mentioned that this is my favourite artist? Spain seems to be known for wacky, eccentric artists, who have a daring and inventive approach to their work, and though I have a lot of respect for Picasso, Gaudi and Dali, it´s Miro that most inspires me of the bunch.
I broke the ´no photos´ rule at least twenty times, and only got caught twice, so I´m pretty proud of myself. The audio guide was informative and it was all intriguing, even when a dot seemed out of place or a line seemed too curvy. My favourite was his ´The blue in the gold´ (or something to that effect), of which I got a 5 euro poster. There were tapestries, sculptures, and, of course, paintings. I later chatted to a heavily made up lady from Geneva who said I looked like I was concetrating a lot during the exhibition.
Before I forget, there was a temporary exhibition of a remarkable artist called Chiho Aoshima called ´Torture and Seduction´. The most interesting artwork in the room was a cityscape of pear or phallic shaped sky-scrapers, full of multi-coloured lights within and set against a sky gently cadenced from dark blue to pale rose, with pinks and purples in between... ít was called ´A Fleeting Moment of Happiness´. Then there were the ápricot´ pictures, of delicate female figures tied to a large delicately drawn tree, slightly varied in three different colours. Aoshima´s art speaks of the fragility of the human condition, but also its beauty, and I now must find out everything I can about him.
The last exhibition in the Fundacio I saw was a collection of works by other artists that paid tributes to Miro, and my favourite was called Ít´s all an illusion, perhaps´, with indistinct forms merging together in pale colours, tinged with lime, and with black outlines. The colours belnded into each other in a way that suggested both harmony and tension in the blend, and the painting looked like it was shaking to produce an interesting effect.
Next I saw the Catedral, which I found mostly unimpressive and could have skipped without missing too much, we dined on calamari and roast chicken with a Catalonian salad which included ham and salami slices, and we went for a strll along La Rambla, popping into the tourist shops and buying T-shirts and a scarf. Interestingly enough, almost all these shops were run by Indians.
I have to leave it here for now,
So adios for now!
I started with the one I had a feeling would most appeal to me, Casa Battlo. What an experience! There are almost no straight lines in the house, which give it a dream-like appearance. The theme is the oceanic world and its organic forms, and it manifests itself in everything from what look like droplets of water on the ceiling to the blue colour that can be seen throughout, getting darker at the top and lighter at the bottom. The lower down you go, the larger the windows become, compensating for less natural light filtering down to them. I couldn´t get enough of the place, and the more I looked, the more details I spotted. The audio guide emphasised that not a detail was out of place, and I believed it.
We then made our way to Park Guell, which seems to be best known for its colourful lizard perching in the middle of a staircase. Indeed it was so popular as a site for photos that I barely saw all of it at the one time. I´ve since bought a T-shirt with a representation of the lizard, so now I can admire it in all its glory wherever I go... The park greets you with two brown buildings, one of which looks like the gingerbread house out of Hansel and Gretel, and the other with a long spire extending many metres above the ground. Continuing past the lizard, there is a large red building on the left with quirky rhombus-shaped windows, and a large sitting area which overlooks Barcelona on the right. It is bordered by one long recurring bench with fragments of ceramic tiles of all sorts of colours and patterns brought together in an eclectic symphony bordered by white. There is no one curve of the bench that looks like the rest, so I walked by it all, taking photos every few seconds as I went.
Today began with another canya, and two hours of the spectacular Fundacio Joan Miro. Have I mentioned that this is my favourite artist? Spain seems to be known for wacky, eccentric artists, who have a daring and inventive approach to their work, and though I have a lot of respect for Picasso, Gaudi and Dali, it´s Miro that most inspires me of the bunch.
I broke the ´no photos´ rule at least twenty times, and only got caught twice, so I´m pretty proud of myself. The audio guide was informative and it was all intriguing, even when a dot seemed out of place or a line seemed too curvy. My favourite was his ´The blue in the gold´ (or something to that effect), of which I got a 5 euro poster. There were tapestries, sculptures, and, of course, paintings. I later chatted to a heavily made up lady from Geneva who said I looked like I was concetrating a lot during the exhibition.
Before I forget, there was a temporary exhibition of a remarkable artist called Chiho Aoshima called ´Torture and Seduction´. The most interesting artwork in the room was a cityscape of pear or phallic shaped sky-scrapers, full of multi-coloured lights within and set against a sky gently cadenced from dark blue to pale rose, with pinks and purples in between... ít was called ´A Fleeting Moment of Happiness´. Then there were the ápricot´ pictures, of delicate female figures tied to a large delicately drawn tree, slightly varied in three different colours. Aoshima´s art speaks of the fragility of the human condition, but also its beauty, and I now must find out everything I can about him.
The last exhibition in the Fundacio I saw was a collection of works by other artists that paid tributes to Miro, and my favourite was called Ít´s all an illusion, perhaps´, with indistinct forms merging together in pale colours, tinged with lime, and with black outlines. The colours belnded into each other in a way that suggested both harmony and tension in the blend, and the painting looked like it was shaking to produce an interesting effect.
Next I saw the Catedral, which I found mostly unimpressive and could have skipped without missing too much, we dined on calamari and roast chicken with a Catalonian salad which included ham and salami slices, and we went for a strll along La Rambla, popping into the tourist shops and buying T-shirts and a scarf. Interestingly enough, almost all these shops were run by Indians.
I have to leave it here for now,
So adios for now!
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