My first impression whilst walking through MNAC Gallery was very hesitant. It features work by Catalan artists with paintings from modern, baroque and romantic periods. I proceeded to walk through the gallery staring at sculptures that meant very little to me.
Of course, that sounds so negative. But I think that’s the way most things start. It’s like making a friend. You don’t know what to expect, so you keep your mind open until you become acquainted well enough to understand them and therefore judge them. In this case it took me all of 5 minutes reading about Julio Gonzalez and his adept ability to weld metals and make beautiful sculptures. Not to mention his paintings weren’t too bad either.
This continued on in a similar fashion for some time, until I reached one particular painting. At first the overall picture seemed a little obscene, not nearly fluent in Catalan the title Naixement d’una Deessa was of little assistance. Yet, I couldn’t help but stare at the left hand side. The word that instantly came to mind was captivating. It must of been twenty minutes of me standing there frowning at this painting. Every now and then running backwards and forwards to see the difference it would make. It was impossible to grasp how he could do it.
The painting seemed to drip down like water. There appeared to be no brush marks, and then just to make the whole picture even more complicated there were thin indentations creating a fabric like appearance. It was a very unique and smooth style. My reaction was, he seems to be inspired by Dali. I looked down at the signature and sure enough it was the surrealist himself torturing his audience.
How can anyone make something look so smooth? How can he do that then include little strokes as thin and as pointy as his moustache? There is dimension, originality and just pure magnificence when it comes to texture.
Contextually, I don’t think I could understand this painting without a few hours of ‘outer world’ thinking. The nails must have some significance but all I can see is the perfectly straight lines one next to another in different colours, giving it shape.
I don’t remember what more I wanted to write about this painting. I had neither pen nor paper at the time. All I can remember is a feeling of utter bewilderment, like I’d just said good morning to Johnny Depp without realising. I went back to the painting three times to check on it. I don’t know what I was hoping to see. I think I just wanted to make sure it was still captivating.
It wasn’t merely the fact it was a Dali painting. There were two others in the gallery, not nearly as impressive. But I believe more famous. Simple portaits. They make me smile just like Picasso’s portaits. These modern artists make characters, and they mock them. That’s what I like about Modernism, it’s not just representing hard times, religion or death. It can represent emotions of different kinds, including humour and it’s still just as amazing.
Moving on from the Modernist arena. I stumbled upon the Baroque section. Now I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Europeans are obsessed with jesus simply obsessed. He was hanging everywhere. He was paintings on the walls, a statue in the centre of the room, a mural on the roof. It was overwhelming. For the beginning, I looked at the artworks and studied the differences. Sincerely perplexed by their mad dog skills I was usually 2 inches away from the piece or running off to see it from a new light.
Eventually, I came to a point where I felt lost in a labyrinth of gold and rouge paintings. Consumed in the depictions of kings and blood, brutality and innocence; each every bit as incredible as before. Honestly, I can’t understand how, even in the early years, they managed to paint such amazingly detailed pieces. The realism or the texture, it was completely affable.
There is only so much religious art work I can handle. Beautiful for sure, but repetition is killing this cat. Presuming the paintings are more or less accurate to the Crucifixion of Christ, It’s curious that the Romans used only one nail for both of Jesus’ feet. Surely it would be easier to nail two different ones in and I imagine it wouldn’t be any less painful. An estimation of my own feet one on the other the thickness is about 20cm more or less. So with that in mind and given that evolution shouldn’t have radically changed over two thousand years, that nail would have to be at least 30cm long in order to pierce through the bone and be steadfast in the wood. I would not want to be the soldier who has to hammer that one in. I think only one painting displayed Jesus on the cross with both feet nailed individually. Admittedly it wasn’t an awe-inspiring piece so perhaps it’s for aesthetic reasons they paint it in such a way. I just don’t believe they would be able to have a nail strong enough to go through two feet and into wood. But then again it is more economical to save nails.
Old paintings are very violent. They seem to have little on their minds other than sex, torture and death. A rather brutal painting by Josep de Ribera “La Spagnoletto” (The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew) seemed to have one of Joss Whedon’s Vampires stealing a corpse who I presume was either Jesus or Bartholomew. It’s pretty gruesome and disturbing, though not so disturbing as Lucas Cranach’s “Unequal Lovers”.
By now, I realise I sound like I was twisted off my face in this museum. I will admit I felt maybe I was going crazy. I have never felt so overcome by such an amount of artwork. The last of the museum had the roof and walls covered with biblical images. It was nearly closing time so most people had left. It had become my own gallery of judging faces, Jesus hand gestures and mourning virgins.
After 3 hours, I left it fairly quickly.
