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it. Much of the collection is, in fact, of his later works, since the museum was
only proposed – and works specifically set aside – in the 1960s, when Miró had
already been painting for almost fifty years. But there are early Realist works
from before the mid-1920s, like the effervescent
Portrait of aYoung Girl
(1919),
while other gaps are filled by a collection later donated by Miró’s widow, Pilar
Juncosa, which demonstrates Miró’s preoccupations in the 1930s and 1940s.
During this period he began his
Constellations
series, in which first appeared the
colours, themes and symbols that later came to define his work – reds and blues,
women, birds and tears, the sun, moon and stars, all eventually pared down to
the minimalist basics.The same period also saw the fifty black-and-white litho-
graphs of the
Barcelona Series
(1939–44), executed in the immediate aftermath
of the CivilWar.They are a dark reflection of the turmoil of the period; snarling
faces and great black shapes and shadows dominate. For a rapid appraisal of
Miró’s entire
oeuvre
look in on the museum’s
Sala K
, whose 23 works are on
long-term loan from a Japanese collector. Here, in a kind of potted retrospective,
you can trace Miró’s development as an artist, from his early Impressionist
landscapes (1914) to the minimal renderings of the 1970s.
Perhaps the most innovative room of all is one full of work by other artists in
homage to Miró, including fine pieces by Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Max
Ernst, Richard Serra, Robert Motherwell and Eduardo Chillida. The single
most compelling exhibit in this section however, has to be Alexander Calder’s
Mercury Fountain
, which he built for the Republican pavilion at the Paris
Universal Exhibition of 1936–37 – the same exhibition for which Picasso
painted
Guernica
. Like
Guernica
, it’s a tribute to a town, this time the mercury-
mining town of Almáden – its name spelled out in dangling metal letters above
the fountain – which saw saturation bombing during the Civil War.
Other exhibits include Miró’s enormous bright
tapestries
(he donated nine
to the museum), pencil drawings (particularly of misshapen women and
gawky ballerinas) and
sculpture
outside in the gardens. All these started life
in the form of
sketches and notes
, and the museum has retained five
thousand separate examples, of which it usually displays a selection. From a
doodle on a scrap of old newspaper or on the back of a postcard, it’s possible
to trace the development of shapes and themes that later evolved into full-
blown works of art.
Castell de Montjuïc
Marking the top of the hill and the end of the line is Barcelona’s castle – and
the best way up is by the Telefèric de Montjuïc (cable car) which tacks up the
hillside, offering magnificent views on the way, before depositing you within the
eighteenth-century walls. The outer defences of the
Castell de Montjuïc
(grounds open daily 7am–8pm; free) were constructed as a series of angular
concentric perimeters, designed for artillery deflection, while the inner part of
the fort served as a military base and prison for many years. It was here that the
last president of the pre-war Generalitat,
Lluís Companys i Jover
,was executed
on Franco’s orders on October 15, 1940 – he had been in exile in Paris after the
CivilWar, but was handed over to Franco by the Germans upon their capture of
the French capital. He’s buried in the nearby Cementiri del Sud-Oest.
The ramparts and grounds are free to enter, and you can skirt the outer walls
of the bastion as well, where the locals come at weekends to practise archery
MONTJUÏC
|
Castell
de Montjuïc