MIRO MUSEUM AND PALACE OF CATALAN MUSIC

We decided to visit the Museum of Joan Miro since we had seen much of his work throughout Barcelona and it had been recommended by someone.  The building designed by a friend of Miro and a student was purposely built to show off Miro's work.  The museum displays an always changing, loosely chronological overview of Miro's oeuvre ( as well as temporary exhibits of 20th and 21st century artists.  

Rick Steve says" If you don't like abstract art, you'll leave here scratching your head.  But those who love this place are not faking it...they understand the genius of Miro and the fun of abstraction.  Children probably understand it the best.  Eavesdrop  in what they say about the art; you may learn something".  

Well I left scratching my head and I couldn't find any children to evesdrop on.  It was enjoyable and I have to marvel at the genius of the man.  It has to be genius.  His view of the world is certainly different from mine - ha!  

No pictures were allowed in the museum but we were able to take a few photographs in the couryards.

Some interesting art work as we walked in, deposited our belongings in a locker and went to the cafeteria to grab lunch before touring the museum.

Our first stop was to view the massive 400-square-foot Tapestry of the Foundation, which Miro designed for this space in 1979.  The tapestry has real texture - like a painting with thick brushstrokes. Miro's signature star and moom are part of the tapestry.  (I went online to get a photograph of it. )

Miro had designed a different tapestry for the New York World Trade Center around this same time and of course it was lost on 9/11.  (Another picture from the internet)

Miro believed that everything in the cosmos is linked - colors, sky, stars, love, time, music, dog, men, women, dirt and the void.  He mixed simple symbols of these things creatively, as a poet uses words.  It's as liberating for the visual artist to be abstract as it is for the poet:  Both can use metaphors rather than being confined to concrete explanations.  Miro would listen to music and paint.  It's interactive,  free interpretation.  He said, "For me, simplicity is freedom."

Devotees of Miro say they fly with him and don't even need drugs.  Psychoanalysts liken Miro's free-for-all canvases to Rorschach tests.  Is that a cigar in that star's mouth?

These too are off the internet but if you don't know his work I thought it would be interesting to see some famous pieces.

Two Figues and a Dragonfly

Harlequin Carnival

Woman doing her hair before a mirror 

Prades the Village

Joan Miró Ferra was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona. At the age of 14, he went to business school in Barcelona and also attended La Lonja’s Escuela Superior de Artes Industriales y Bellas Artes in the same city. Upon completing three years of art studies, he took a position as a clerk. After suffering a nervous breakdown, he abandoned business and resumed his art studies, attending Francesc Galí’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona from 1912 to 1915. Miró received early encouragement from the dealer José Dalmau, who gave him his first solo show at his gallery in Barcelona in 1918. In 1917 he met Francis Picabia.

In 1920 Miró made his first trip to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. From this time, Miró divided his time between Paris and Montroig, Spain. In Paris he associated with the poets Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, and Tristan Tzara and participated in Dada activities. Dalmau organized Miró’s first solo show in Paris, at the Galerie la Licorne in 1921. His work was included in the Salon d’Automne of 1923. In 1924 Miró joined the Surrealist group. His solo show at the Galerie Pierre, Paris, in 1925 was a major Surrealist event; Miró was included in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre that same year. He visited the Netherlands in 1928 and began a series of paintings inspired by Dutch masters. That year he also executed his first papiers collés (pasted papers) and collages. In 1929 he started his experiments in lithography, and his first etchings date from 1933. During the early 1930s he made Surrealist sculptures incorporating painted stones and found objects. In 1936 Miró left Spain because of the civil war; he returned in 1941. Also in 1936 Miró was included in the exhibitions Cubism and Abstract Art and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The following year he was commissioned to create a monumental work for the Paris World’s Fair.

Miró’s first major museum retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941. In 1944 Miró began working in ceramics with Josep Lloréns y Artigas and started to concentrate on prints; from 1954 to 1958 he worked almost exclusively in these two mediums. He received the Grand Prize for Graphic Work at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and his work was included in the first Documenta exhibition in Kassel the following year. In 1958 Miró was given a Guggenheim International Award for murals for the UNESCO building in Paris. The following year he resumed painting, initiating a series of mural-sized canvases. During the 1960s he began to work intensively in sculpture. Miró retrospectives took place at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, in 1962, and the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1974. In 1978 the Musée National d’Art Moderne exhibited over five hundred works in a major retrospective of his drawings. Miró died on December 25, 1983, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Moving on from Miro but continuing on the cultural track last evening we attended a Spanish Guitar Night at the Palace of Music ( Palau de la Musica Catalana).  We went as much to hear the guitarist as to view the palace.  I should point out that we dressed up for this occasion.  We had our boots on,not our walking shoes.  I think we even had on different earrings - something with a little bling!  So great to dress up :-)!

The Palau was designed by Lluis Domenech i Montaner ( architect of the hospital featured in an earlier blog).  It was built in three years -1905-1908.  The hall seats 2,138 people.  

This is a little eating place which you go through to get to the Palau.

A choir of young men and women surround "the sun" in the stained-glass skylight.  

The dominant theme in the sumptuous sculptural decor of the concert hall is choral music, something that might be expected in an auditorium commissioned by a choral society.  On the left side of the stage is a bust of Anselm Clave, a famous choir director who  was instrumental in reviving Catalan folk songs.  Situated beneath this statue are sculpted girls singing the Cataln song Les Flors de Maig (The Flowers of May).

The whole arch over the front of the stage was sculpted by Didac Masana and Pablo Gargallo.  On the right side is depicted the ride of the valkyries in Wagner's opera Die Walkure ( The Valkynries), an opera in which the female choir sings with great musical power.  Under the valkyries and among the Doric columns- symbols of classical art - is a bust of Beethoven that many think was placed there in honor of the beautiful choral composition in Beethoven's Nineth Symphony known as the Ode to Joy.  So the arch represents folk music on the left and classical music on the right, both united at the top of the arch.  

In a semi circle on the sides of the back of the stage are the figures of 18 young women popularly known as the muses (although there are only nine muses in Greek mythology).  The monotone upper bodies of the women proturde from the wall and the lower bodies are depicted by colorful mosaics that form part of the wall.  Each of the women are playing a different instrument, and each is wearing a different skirt, blouse and headress of elaborate design. 

The young performer playing the Spanish guitar was Ali Arango and he was magnificent.  The concert was just an hour but he played two encores.  His music was magical.  

Beautiful setting plus beautiful concert equal a beautiful night!