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Art Nouveau

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Barcelona is waiting for you!!!

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While Covid-19 virus has put a stop to our normal lives, these are some places that I want to show you. They–and others–are part of our culture, traditions and monuments to be visited. We hope that you’ll be able to see them in person pretty soon!

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When you have chosen to visit Barcelona and Catalonia a question arises: and what I am going to see? in this video you have my choice:

Sharing the streets, usually plenty of life, you will see sculptures that links with the recent story of the city; “the Cat” by Fernando Botero; Sant George, patron Saint of Catalonia, killing the dragon; the Goddess by Josep Clarà heats Catalonia Square, the center of Barcelona, and beginning of the elegant boulevard Passeig de Gràcia; by the Olympic games, Roy Lichtensteinpresented us “the face of Barcelona” in his Pop-Art style.

Famous painters have left their print in Catalonia: Salvador Dalí was born and died in Figueres; Joan Miro was born in Barcelona and although Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga (south of Spain), he said that everything started in Barcelona!!!

Catalonia is a welcoming land, chosen by many visitators as its homeland, they have become one of us, they have brought their culture too; as the Flamenco dance, but the Sardana is the original dance of Catalonia. We say that la Sardana is the most beautiful dance of all dances that are done and undone. Maybe it is the unique one that is done and undone; anyway, it is danced in a circle and everyone is accepted.

Of course, in Barcelona you won’t miss the masterpieces of Gaudí: Sagrada Familia, Batlló House or Park Güell. But in our art museums you will admire from the Romanesque frescos that from the Pyrenees mountains were recovered 100 years ago to the modern art such as Ramon Casas.

Not so far from Barcelona, our lady, the Black Madonna of Montserrat watch the mountain; she is the patroness Saint of Catalonia and our devotion for her goes back to 1000 years ago, even Christopher Columbus visited her before his second trip. Caravaggio wasn’t in Montserrat, for sure, but in its museum a Saint Jerome by Caravaggio is exhibit.

We will get our Art and City back and when that time comes, I will be here waiting for you.

Anís del Mono Factory

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The only existing factory of the anisette “Anís del Mono” is located in Badalona. It’s an 1870 modernist jewel and, you can not only visit it, but every year it produces more than 4 million of liters of that liquor well known throughout the World.

The factory was founded by José and Vicente Bosch brothers, when they joined and decided to re-locate here the distillation of different liquors which José produced since 1865 in another factory in the center of Badalona.The liquor which would get the fame was “Anisado Refinado Vicente Bosch” (the refined anisette Vicente Bosch) which is in fact the name of the product, but Badalona population knew it as “Anís del Mono” (The monkey’s anisette), due to Vicente Bosch used to have a monkey in the factory yard, animal quite exotic in that time. Such was that habit of calling the liquor with that name, that the monkey’s figure ended up on the bottle label, but with Darwin’s heat, because Darwin in 1859, with his masterwork “On the Origen of the Spices”, had ideas so strange like man come from the ape.

The catalane painter Ramon Casas was the artist of a lot of Modernist Posters at the moment, used by companies as advertising. Companies such as Anís del Mono (see picture); Codorniu; or Cacaolat.

Now, even though the factory belongs to Osborne Group, the liquor is produced in the same handicraft way and, besides, since this year “Aromes de Montserrat” (a liquor produced by the Benedictine monks of Montserrat) is produced also here.

To visit it

The roman soldier of the Sagrada Familia with 6 toes in each foot

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On the Birth facade of the Sagrada Família there is a sculpture which represents a Roman soldier in the “Massacre of the Innocents”.

Gaudí and Matamala sculptors’ team were choosing casual passers-by to use them as a models for the different sculptures. They took a picture with a set of mirrors of the chosen person. In that way, they got in the same picture every part of that person and so they made the corresponding sculpture.

The chosen person to represent the Roman soldier was one of the Sagrada Família workers. Everyone was astonishes when they took the picture and realised he had six toes in each foot. Matamala proposed to sculpt only five, but Gaudí said “No” and asked to represent him just as he was, in order to show how different was someone capable to kill innocent under two years old children, even if the soldiers followed king Herod’s orders. So here we have the Roman six toes soldier.

If you want to know the Sagrada Familia, I suggest you the the Gaudí Tour.

 

The Lampposts of Passeig de Gràcia – Barcelona

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Pere Falqués designed these lampposts in 1906. They are located along Passeig de Gràcia and in them we can see the different details used by the artist in Art Nouveau, here called Modernist:

  • Modernist made things with various uses: in that case the lamp is not only a street lamp for the cars and another for the pedestrian but it’s also a bench
  • They used the “trencadís” (broken ceramic) because modernist preferred to use it instead of paint, because it doesn’t fall off the wall and shine with the sun
  • They used wrought iron too, giving to it flower shapes (if you take a look at the lamp it has the form of a climbing plant).

Besides Pere Falqués put on it the Barcelona shield, the Aragon King’s crow and the bat, symbol of fortune since the kind Jaume I when he conquered València.