Paintings, provender and play!

The idea of the weekend is as balm to my weary soul; even if the reality is not always as comforting as it should be.

This weekend I will venture into the city to refresh my jaded cultural appetite with an exhibition in a small gallery in the old part of Barcelona.  This purports to be an exhibition on the Golden Age of Catalan Art and from a visit to the site of the gallery it looks to have some real quality among the twenty paintings that make up the exhibition – and what a civilized number of art works to look at!

The real intention behind going to the exhibition is to get a meal in MNAC (of which I am a friend) and gaze out at the astonishingly unimpressive view over the city of Barcelona through the windows which stretch from floor to vaulted ceiling in the dining room of the restaurant.  The seats by the windows themselves have to be reserved so you miss out on the interesting bits of the view by being forced to sit by the opposite wall.  Never mind the food is good and worth the large sum of money for the menu del dia.  And, I might add, the menu comes with water or a soft drink: no wine!

The exhibition, in a small gallery tucked away in one of the winding streets in the old part of Barcelona was full of people who looked as though they could afford the paintings on display.  I must admit that I had thought that many of the paintings on display were of names which you would not necessarily find in a commercial gallery, one would expect to see the paintings in public collections.

One small diversion was to the bookshop that has taken over the premises of PC City and I picked up the volumes that I had left there the last time I had called in.  Which was also the first time.  I was able to use the card that they gave me on my last visit, which I now realize was an opening offer, and got some money off the two books I bought.  Both of them were art books and both are in Spanish so I can pretend to myself that there are necessary for the development of my understanding of the language. 

They both have a dictionary format with the entries illustrated by classic works of art.  The first is a dictionary of Saints and the second of literary characters.  I did, of course, look up Saint Stephen first, before I realized that by looking under “S” I was forgetting which language the book was written in! 

They are both excellent, and I now I know of other artists who have painted Ophelia other than Millais.  (In case you are wondering they include, John William Waterhouse, Henri Gerveux, Alberto Martini, Eugene Delacroix and Felice Carena – the odd Italians might have something to do with where this collection of books was first published, in Milan.

Before we got to the gallery we called into a Basque bar and had one tapa and a very small glass of Basque wine.  They were both delicious but at the price that they charged it was the last visit that we will make!

Although the names of the artists in the exhibition might not be familiar to those outside Catalonia, painters like Mir, Urgell, Nonell, Gimeno, Meifrèn and above all Cassas are staples in major public galleries in this area.  Unfortunately I did not have the eighty thousand euros to purchase a small study by Cassas and anyway it had already been bought!  Crisis?  What crisis!

We took the underground to MNAC – or at least to Plaza de España and began the long hike via street and escalator to the museum itself.

The meal was just the sort of poncy food that I love and served in such an impressive setting and with excellent company it was ideal.

Although we did not “do” an exhibition while we were in the museum we did (fatally) go into the bookshop where I found a book that I have been looking for. 

I have been searching for a general description of the artists who figured in the exhibition we had just visited in the small gallery in the city and lo and behold the bookshop had what looked like a newish publication entitled “Modernisme in the MNAC collections” with essays by Mercè Doñate, Mariàngels Fondevila, Cristina Mendoza and Francesc Qiílez i Corella.

And it was in English!

It is an excellent book, lavishly illustrated and with informative essays on Painting, Drawings, Decorative Art, Sculpture and Posters, Prints and Bookplates.  It was reasonably price for a hardback at €20 and the only drawback I can see is that the translation by Andrew Langdon-Davies makes for an uneasy read. 

I am sure that it is a faithful translation from the Spanish or Catalan, but that does not always produce the most convincing English!  Having done a tiny, heavily guided amount of translation I can vouch for the fact that a good English translation sometimes deviates quite substantially from the original - and one hopes that people do not take the time to check one against the original!

But the overview of the artistic activity at this time, roughly from 1890 to 1911, is one of the best that I have found and it allows me to make links in a surer way than I have been able to previously.  I read the book last night with the same enthusiasm that I usually reserve for a gripping novel!  And remember there were lots of pictures!

Sunday has dawned grimly and we have had a short but torrential downpour that has now degenerated into a sulky drizzle.  The west, however, looks bright and I shall preserve my optimism about a day rarely passing in this part of the world without a brave show of sunshine at some time during its daylight hours.

So, on with the reading!