Mendoza, Cristina

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert


M U S E U M S  
M U S E U  
D'ART M O D E R N  
THE ARTISTS REPRESENTED IN THE MUSEUM'SCOLLECTIONS ARE 
MOSTLY CATALAN OR TRAINED IN CATALONIA DURING THE 
NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES. THE MUSEUM, 
THEREFORE, CONTAINS A SAMPLE OF THE HISTORY OF CATALAN 
ART FROM NEOCLASSICISM DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
C R I S T I N A  MENDOZA D I R E C T O R  O F  T H E  M U S E U  D ' A R T  M O D E R N  
C he Museu dArt de Barcelona was naugurated on 5 June 1945 in the Palau de la Ciutadella. How- 
ever, its origins go back to 1891, when 
the Museu de Belles Arts was inaugurated 
in the palace of the same name, contain- 
ing a colledion belonging to the city. In 
the last yean of the nineteenth century, 
Barcelona began to organize inter- 
national art exhibitions, along the lines 
of those held in other European cities, 
in which foreign artists participated 
alongside those of our awn country. This 
period was a particularly brilliant one for 
Catalan art, and the paintings, mainly by 
Catalan artists, purchased at these exhi- 
bitions, formed the germ of the incipient 
museum, later to be enriched by succes- 
sive legacies, donations and further acqui- 
sitions. 
The artists represented in the museum's 
collections are mostly Catalan or train; 
ed in Catalonia during the nineteenth 
and twentieth centuries. The museum, 
therefore, contains a sample of the history 
of Catalan artfrom Neoclassicism down to 
the present day, though the period most 
extensively represented is that of the 
second half of the nineteenth century and 
the first quarter of our own, specifically 
those movements known as Realism, 
Modernism and Noucentisme. The only 
painter working before this period who 
deserves special mention is Maria Fortuny 
(1 836-1 874), whose artistic career began 
with Romanticism, evolved towards aesthei- 
icism and, in his later work, showed the 
beginnings of Impressionism. His death in- 
terrupted this career and the decisive influ- 
ence he would have had on the art of the 
period. The museum maintains a large 
colledon of paintings, drawings and 
etchings by this prematurely deceased artist. 
In the second half of the nineteenth centu- 
ry, a real artistic revolution took place in 
Catalonia, led by the painter Ramon Marti 
Alsina (1 826-94), who introduced the 
new ideas of Courbet's Realism into the 
country. Marti Alsina's influence was 
fundamental in changing the direction of 
Catalan art, which was bogged down in 
academism, and sowing the seed of the 
new Catalan school, which was shortly to 
produce one of the most splendid periods 
of Catalan art. The museum's collections 
are extraordinarily rich in al1 this Realist 
period, which was to develop into the so- 
called ~'anecdotism", so much to the liking 
of the Barcelona bourgeoisie of the time. 
The rise of.this bourgeoisie culminated in 
the celebration of the Exposició Universal 
in 1988, starting point for the artistic 
movement known as Modernism, the 
Catalan version of Art Nouveau with its 
own particular characteristics. Modernism 
was a movement which encompassed al1 
the arts, from architecture to decora- 
tive arts, and effectively brought them al1 
together. Just as the streets of Barcelo- 
M U S E U M S  
na are full of Modernist buildings, the 
work of such outstanding architects as 
Gaudí (1 852-1 926), Puig i Cadafalch 
(1 867-1 957) or Domenech i Montaner 
(1 850-1 923), so the halls of the Museu 
&Art Modern assemble a fabulous collec- 
tion of sculptures, paintings, and decora- 
tive and graphic art of the period. In 
painting, the most important representa- 
tives are Ramon Casas (1 866-1 932) and 
Santiago Rusiñol (1 861 -1 931), who ¡m- 
ported French lmpressionism to Catalo- 
nia; in sculpture, the outstanding names 
are those of Josep Llimona (1 864-1 934) 
and Miquel Blay (1 866-1 936); in decora- 
tive art, the furniture designers Gaspar 
Homar (1 870-1 953) and Joan Busquets 
(1 874-1 949); in graphic art, Ramon 
Casas, mentioned above, and Alexandre 
de Riquer (1 856-1 920), to mention just a 
few of the most eminent personalities of 
the numerous group of artists that Moder- 
nism produced. 
A later generation to that of the Moder- 
nists, which some people quite rightly cal1 
"P~stmodernist~~, brought together an- 
other group of artistsi maink painters, 
who were the culmination of the splen- 
dour initiated by Modernism. The mu- 
seum has many works by these artists, 
amongst whom we can single out lsi- 
dre Nonell (1 873-1 91 1 ), Ricard Canals 
(1 876-1 931 ), Joaquim Mir (1 873-1 940) 
and Maria Pidelaserra (1 877-1 946), 
whose work is presented by the museum 
in successive individual halls. 
About 1906 the movement known as 
Noucenfisme started -in some ways a 
successor of Modernism- and continued, 
in slightly differing forms, until the thirties. 
Noucentisme, the same as Modernism, 
was a movement which encompassed al1 
the arts, but, unlike Modernism, which in its 
beginnings had come into conflict with the 
prevailing art in Catalonia, it was in some 
ways an official style in the sense that its 
formal content, which favoured a return 
to Classicism, was not alien to the predo- 
M U S E U M S  
minant ideology, but in fact formed part 
of a political programme which aimed, 
amongst other things, at the cultural 
modernization of Catalonia. Noucentis- 
me, then, has to be understood as a spe- 
cifically Catalan movement which, in spite 
of some formal charaderistics it shared 
with contemporary European movements, 
cannot be considered independently of 
the general situation in Catalonia, where 
nationalism was then beginning to re- 
surface. The Museu de Barcelona also has 
a good sample of Noucentisme ari, 
though it is not as complete in the decora- 
tive arts as that of Modernism, since by 
this time these had diminished in im- 
portance. The most representative pain- 
ter of the period was Joaquim Su- 
nyer (1 875-1 956), and the museum pre- 
sents an extensive collection of his work 
in its halls. In the field of sculpture, out- 
standing personalities are Enric Ca- 
sanovas (1 882-1 948) and Josep Clara 
(1 878-1 958), the former well repre- 
sented in the museum, while the latter has 
a museum in Barcelona dedicated ex- 
clusively to him. Other important figures, 
such as the painter and draughtsman Xa- 
vier Nogués (1 873-1 940) and the 
sculptor Manolo Hugué (1 872-1 945), 
also form pari of this movement and have 
individual halls in the museum. 
Also belonging to the period, though their 
careers are more closely linked to the 
European avant-garde, are the sculptors 
Pau Gargallo (1 881 -1 934) and Juli Gon- 
zalez (1 876-1 942), initiators of contem- 
porary sculpture in our country and well 
represented in the museum. 
Regarding the period after the Spanish 
Civil War, the museum has numerous ex- 
amples of painting and sculpture by those 
artists who continued in the figurative line 
inherited from Noucentisme. Of the 
regrettably limited representation of the 
art of today, perhaps the most impor- 
tant works are those by Antoni Tapies 
(b. 1923). 
As can be seen, the Museu dArt Modern 
de Barcelona offers a good cross-sedion 
of the Catalan art produced during the 
nineteenth and part of this century, and is 
an undeniable aid in the understanding of 
the recent history of our city. • 


Museu d'Art Modern

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert