Sunday and Montjuic is Open

Sunday’s are always our challenging days because so many things are closed.  But this week we discovered Montjuic is open well at least the National Museum of Art is open and that’s on Judy’s adventure list.  This is the Catalan Art Museum and the one and only art museuma Judy and I both agree we want to visit.

The Montjuic  area is very beautiful.  The fountain in the Plaza Espana is one of the most beautiful in all of Barcelona.  I am also extremely fond of a bullring that has been converted into a shopping mall.  From the outside you would never know it is no longer an operating bullring but I’m glad it is now just a very interesting shopping mall.  You can see it behind me in the picture above.  To get to the museum from the plaza you must climb a long set of steps and escalators but there was a nice breeze and for the first day in three weeks the blistering heat was a bit better which made the climb up a lot better.

The building that houses the museum is absolutely stunning!  I’m afraid the picture can’t possibly do it justice.  As you enter through the front door you are awed by the majesty of the entire building.  I might add that the museum was well air conditioned which also made it well worth the price of admission for the day.

Now for the Catalan art, we started with the Renaissance period which of course meant lots of very dark, very religious, very large pictures of martyrs and saints.  It’s an extensive collection and the theme is profoundly religious.  We were most fascinated by the many pictures of Mary with many cherub babies floating around her and often falling out of her skirt.  That’s all I have to say about that! 

After that we jumped right into the contemporary art.  This is a little more difficult to summarize because it basically covers from the 1800s through today and included everything from soup to nuts.  This being said however, it was a much happier section.  We saw work by the known artists like Dali, Picasso, Spanish Impressionists, Gaudi, Miro and so on but the surprising thing for both of us was how many additional really good Catalan artist there were.

There was a significant amount of sculptures and one that sticks with both Judy and I was made out of black marble and it was a dying matador.  This will sound very strange because of the subject but it was strikingly beautiful and moving.

On the metro ride home Judy met (picked-up) an elderly gentleman who clearly favored her enough to follow us to the benches where they shared stories about their bad knees, she in English, he Catalan.  I don’t know if either one of them understood the other but I know I didn’t understand either of them!  They however, seemed to have some sort of rapport that didn’t require language!

After a simple but tasty dinner at the restaurant across the street from the flat we were in for a lively tournament of Rummicube.  Judy has asked me not to mention the results……..hahaha