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domingo, 15 de mayo de 2011

MODERNISM & ART NOUVEAU IN CATALONIA

The Art Nouveau in Catalonia & Modernisme had a fantastic expansion in a country opened to all currents from Europe in order to affirm his differences with Spain and reinforce his political nationalism, in a period of rebirth known as "Renaixença" after a long period of decline caused by its military defeat in 1714 and consequent loss of his national rights and institutions.
The ideas of Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc and the aesthetic of William Morris, Walter Crane, Mackmurdo, Mackintosh, etc. had been accepted as the base of artistic renewal.
Architects as
Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner, Puig i Cadafalch and others took the leadership of that movement.
Specially the role of
Domènech i Montaner (1849-1923) was essential to define the "Modernisme arquitectonic" (architectonic Art Nouveau) in Catalonia.
His article "En busca d'una arquitectura nacional" (In search of a national architecture), published in the magazine "La Renaixença", shows the way to attempt a modern architecture reflecting the national Catalan personality.
The Art Nouveau artists (the Modernists) thought of creative imagination as a creator of symbols in contrast with the eclecticism that presents the art as objective description of reality. In fact, Art Nouveau represents all over the world and specially in Catalonia the freedom to create new shapes not previously accepted.
The Catalan Art Nouveau & Modenism does not only reflect in its architecture the ornamentation richness who is common in all the Art Nouveau, but also manifest an interest to maintain and renew the traditional building and decoration techniques, using old materials such as brick and new materials (at that time) as iron and new
ceramic techniques.
These new tendencies were evident  in all the different artistic areas such as
architecture (including all types of buildings), sculpture (both as an independent art, or as a complement of buildings), paintingdecorative arts (in materials as ceramics, glasses, wood, textiles, iron, and comprising any object as furniture, lamps, jewels, clothes, bottles, pitchers, crockery's, carpets, etc.), literature and music.
The Art Nouveau had a tremendous social acceptation in Catalonia as part of "Renaixença" and its artists became very popular. That is a fact with the mentioned architects, but also with painters as Ramon Casas,
Isidre Nonell or Santiago Rusiñol (organizer of "Festes

Modernistes" -Art Nouveau festivals- held in Sitges at the end of XIX century).
Some of these artists - the bohemian side of Art Nouveau - had regular meetings from 1897 in the literary café "Els quatre gats" installed in a building of Puig i Cadafalch in the old Barcelona, an Art Nouveau café with a huge prestige in artistic circles.


These meetings were also frequented by other artists as Picasso -his paintings of blue and rose period are considered Art Nouveau-, Miquel Utrillo, Mir, Pichot, and others.
The magazine "Pèl i ploma" published by Ramon Casas was the voice of the movement in Barcelona.
That collective attitude of artistic renewal and progress was the driver of one of most brilliant periods of Catalan art.


DISCOVERING ROMANESQUE ART IN CATALONIA

First Romanesque is the name due to Josep Puig i Cadafalch to refer to the Romanesque art developed in Catalonia since the late 10th century.
The geographical proximity of this Iberian region to the rest of Europe was brought in Catalonia demonstrations of the emerging Romanesque art.
While the art failed to take root in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula until the second third of the 11th century in the Catalan counties are numerous examples above, if not fully Romanesque, do contain many of the defining characteristics of this artistic style.
To avoid the term Pre-Romanesque often used with a meaning much broader than generally fits to early Medieval and early Christian art, and in Spain the Visigothic, Asturias, Mozarabic and Repoblación, Puig i Cadafalch preferred to use the term "First Romanesque" or "first Romanesque art" to designate those Catalan anticipations of the Romanesque itself. This term is now commonly accepted.
During the first quarter of the 11th century can be seen a great architectural activity by groups composed of Lombard teachers and stonemasons who worked in all Catalan territory, erecting temples fairly uniforms.
The large impeller and diffuser (and sponsor) of this art was Oliva, monk and abbot of the monastery of Ripoll, which in 1032 ordered extending this building with a body up front where two towers, plus a cruise which included seven apses, all decorated the outside with Lombard ornamentation of blind arches and vertical strips.

sábado, 14 de mayo de 2011

THE CISTERCIAN ROUTE

The zeal to uncompromisingly observe the Rule of St. Benedict, which rejects anything superfluous, resulted in the emergence in the 11th century of a renaissance monastic movement which took a stance against the wealth and somewhat sophisticated lifestyle that some monasteries had adopted.
The need to regain the figure of the monk as someone dedicated to prayer, hard work and caring for pilgrims led to the birth of the Cistercian Order. Based on the teachings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian monastic order spread across the whole of Europe.

The Catalan-Aragonese monarchs entrusted the monks with the foundation of important centres endowed with huge tracts of farmland which stimulated the economy and demographic status of their new lands.
In Catalonia, communities were established in Poblet, Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges in response to the need to colonise the under-populated lands conquered from the Saracens and located in the New Catalonia.

viernes, 13 de mayo de 2011

SALVADOR DALI ROUTE

BIOGRPHY
Eugenio Salvador Dalí was with out doubt, a genius. At the age of 14 exhibit his works to critics, often was (and is still some times), misunderstood. When 22 meet Picasso and also was fired from the art school. Few years latter begun to be part of Paris surrealist´s group and there, start the relationship with Gala, that will go on until 1982 when she died. At the age of 79 Dalí painted his last work and past away in 1989 at the age of 85.


HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is a private cultural institution with the mission, as stated in its bylaws, to promote, boost, divulge, lend prestige to, protect and defend in Spain and in any other country the artistic, cultural and intellectual oeuvre of the painter, his goods and rights of any nature; his life experience, his thoughts, his projects and ideas and artistic, intellectual and cultural works; his memory and the universal recognition of the genius of his contribution to the Fine Arts, culture and contemporary thought.

It was created on 23 December 1983 at Púbol Castle at the express wish of Salvador Dalí Domènech. Right from the outset, Dalí presided over and directed the Foundation in person. His death on 23 January 1989 opened up a period of transition until, in 1991, the Board of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation appointed Ramon Boixadós Malé President of the institution. Last March 2006, he was ratified on his position during the meeting of the Board of Trustees.

Since that time the Foundation has updated its operational structure in view of the need to create a dynamic and effective organisation able to generate new projects in order to carry out the task entrusted to it by Salvador Dalí.

jueves, 12 de mayo de 2011

BUS TURISTIC IN BARCELONA

Barcelona Bus Turístic is the official sightseeing tour of the city. Open to all, this sightseeing service is designed so that you discover the city's exceptional sites and experience Barcelona the way you want to.

Helping visitors discover Barcelona since 1987. Managed by Barcelona Turisme and TMB, with their assurance and experience

 RED ROUTE
  RED ROUTE
  RED ROUTE