Montjuic is home to both the Joan Miro Museum and the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The Joan Miro Museum didn't have a promising start: a 35-minute wait for tickets in the hot sun. But once inside and after a restorative lunch, we managed to absorb the sculpture, paintings, tapestry, and other mixed media of this famous Catalan artist known for his youthful vow that he would reject realism and assassinate painting. We had low expectations for the kids as they hadn't loved the modern art in the Reina Sofia. But his repeating symbols and themes grew on the boys and we managed to have a good enough time that more than 2 hours passed. We were tired enough to go home but this was our only chance to see the Catalan National Art Museum (MNAC)
http://www.mnac.cat/index.jsp?lan=003 which had high ratings. So we gave it a chance and while our feet complained we all loved it. The museum smartly providesa brochure of "masterpiece" thumbnails, which our kids turned into a Where's Waldo of art, pulling them from room to room to see if they could identify one of the chief works. One of the surprise highlights was the religious mural section. To save high-altitude Romanesque chapel murals, the Catalan government moved them to MNAC and they were reconstructed in room after room with models of the original Pyrenees churches. Plus there was enough Gothic, Renaissance and Modern art to complete the tour. A little Fortuny, Picasso, Dali, Casas, Velasquez, etc. None of this can be photographed of course but MNAC also has as a great view of the Plaza d'Espana. And then of course we needed a treat for our long day of hiking on the mountain and museum-hopping so it was off to La Vinya Del Senyor, a reportedly amazing wine bar. It was great and there was some funny street music as well but the wine bar was just too close to Bubo not to have a little cake, some tapas, and a mojito too...
Montjuic is home to both the Joan Miro Museum and the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The Joan Miro Museum didn't have a promising start: a 35-minute wait for tickets in the hot sun. But once inside and after a restorative lunch, we managed to absorb the sculpture, paintings, tapestry, and other mixed media of this famous Catalan artist known for his youthful vow that he would reject realism and assassinate painting. We had low expectations for the kids as they hadn't loved the modern art in the Reina Sofia. But his repeating symbols and themes grew on the boys and we managed to have a good enough time that more than 2 hours passed. We were tired enough to go home but this was our only chance to see the Catalan National Art Museum (MNAC) http://www.mnac.cat/index.jsp?lan=003 which had high ratings. So we gave it a chance and while our feet complained we all loved it. The museum smartly providesa brochure of "masterpiece" thumbnails, which our kids turned into a Where's Waldo of art, pulling them from room to room to see if they could identify one of the chief works. One of the surprise highlights was the religious mural section. To save high-altitude Romanesque chapel murals, the Catalan government moved them to MNAC and they were reconstructed in room after room with models of the original Pyrenees churches. Plus there was enough Gothic, Renaissance and Modern art to complete the tour. A little Fortuny, Picasso, Dali, Casas, Velasquez, etc. None of this can be photographed of course but MNAC also has as a great view of the Plaza d'Espana. And then of course we needed a treat for our long day of hiking on the mountain and museum-hopping so it was off to La Vinya Del Senyor, a reportedly amazing wine bar. It was great and there was some funny street music as well but the wine bar was just too close to Bubo not to have a little cake, some tapas, and a mojito too... 
I loved the Miro museum. I stumbled across it (literally, I had no idea the museum was around the corner as I walked up Montjuic) on a visit to Barcelona and they happened to be exhibiting a bunch of Rothko's works. I was in heaven.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I kind of wish we'd seen it in the a.m. so we wouldn't have been quite so whooped. But still it was great--the tapestries in particular were so interesting. I'm usually more attuned to painting and sculpture but the part-collage, part-tapestry work was kind of fascinating to learn about. No Rothko there for us but we were lucky to see a lot of his work in Madrid and Bilbao.
ReplyDelete