9/18/10 Day at the Museum

I enjoyed getting to sleep in today (which for me means 8:30 am)!   For breakfast, I finally didn’t have to eat the mini toasts with butter.  I am starting to get tired of premade toast and butter, but Emily is going to buy me some peanut butter soon to put on the toast.  I looked in a few supermarkets near my apartment, but I could only find nutella.  Emily has peanut butter at the supermarket near her house, so she is going to bring me some on Monday!  After breakfast, I just organized my desk and wrote out a calendar for the semester, so I can start planning some things.  It was a pretty relaxing morning, plus it was raining all night and morning, so I didn’t want to go outside.  When it rains here, it usually rains pretty hard.  I need to buy a cheap paraguas (umbrella), because September and October are the rainiest months according to Wikipedia.  Very few people wear raincoats here, so umbrellas are the way to go.  Anyways, so I chilled in my room for the morning, watched some American shows dubbed in Spanish and then had a pretty early lunch around 1.  For lunch I had some sort of dish that was like a white lasagna—or that’s the best way to describe it.  For my second plate, I had calamari and asparagus.  It was my first time trying calamari and I didn’t mind it.  It was kind of chewy, but it doesn’t have that fishy taste like other types of seafoods.

            For the afternoon, I took the metro to Montjuic and met up with Emily, Morgan and Michael.  I had organized a trip to the Palace that was built for the World’s Exposition in 1929.  Now it is home to the National Museum of Art of Catalunya.  The museum is well know for its Romanesque art, one of the types that we learned about on our art history trip.  You have to buy a ticket to get into the museum, but it is good for two visits.  I had never heard of that before, but it makes sense because there is so much to see in the museum.  We started off going to the Romanesque art wing which was filled with paintings peeled from tiny churches in Spain, especially in the Pyrenees mountains.  They put these paintings back up on the wall or they built domes to replicate the space they had been peeled from.  Even though a lot of parts of the paintings were missing, because they hadn’t survived since the 12^th century, it was cool that they displayed what was left, in a space that replicated the cathedrals they were taken from.  All the painting from this time period were religious and the pancrato was the painting the reoccurred the most.  The pancrato is Jesus sitting with his hands out giving a peace sign like gesture with his right hand.  This reoccurring painting of Jesus is meant to symbolize his dominance over the world and was extremely popular during this time period.  The image of Christ suffering on the cross did not exist until the Gothic period.  So basically we saw lots of pancratos which are usually surrounded by smaller angels or disciple figures. 

Pancrato- sorry about the bad picture quality... most museums don't allow a flash.

            After this section, we went on to the Gothic and Renaissance sections, which included paintings of Christ suffering on the cross and other Biblical scenes.  I found myself thinking a lot about history and the importance of religion throughout history in this part of the museum.  It is crazy to think that during the Romanesque period, twelve centuries after the death of Christ, how far his image or Christianity in general had spread.  Not only had it spread into people’s lives, but their whole culture centered around their religion and the churches.  The churches were the only places where art could be displayed and it was all done to please God.  Even all the art in Gothic period was based on religion.  All that happened within 15 centuries after the death of Christ, and today 5 centuries beyond that, the human race is in a totally different place.  Art is no longer a done for the purpose of some higher being, but for self pleasure.  Churches are no longer centers of art and quite honestly some of the churches I’ve been to in the U.S. (mine included) are the ugliest buildings I’ve ever been to.  The pancrato image was used in churches for a few centuries, yet today there is no one image or type of art that unites people.  Long story short, I am just fascinated by how quickly lifestyles and culture can change, and I wonder what the next 500 years will bring for human culture, because right now it doesn’t seem like the buildings we construct or our technology culture will be as enduring as the art I saw at the museum today.

            Our final wing of art for the day was Romanticism.  The paintings were not meant to be religious and this is the wing where we saw landscapes, portraits and still lifes.  I enjoyed looking at pictures of Barcelona done in the 18^th century.  I saw one painting by Velazquez, and there was supposed to be stuff by El Greco and Goya but I didn’t see that.  I think it is kind of ironic that I have seen more paintings by El Greco and Velazquez at the MFA in Boston than in Spain, but I’ll have to search a little harder on my next visit.  The museum closed at 7, so we sat outside overlooking the fountain.  The fountain wasn’t on, but at night they do a light/ water show with the fountain.  I had to go home for dinner, so I left around 8:45, but Morgan and Emily stayed to watch the light show.  Just before I started writing, I heard fireworks outside, so I went on the balcony to watch them.  Then I realized, that I can see the fountain from by balcony.  The light show isn’t quite the same from this distance, but I’ll plenty of other chances in the next few months to catch the show up close.

Inside the Palace- the part that isn't the art musuem