Synopsis

During the years after the September Revolution of 1868, Barcelona experienced tremendous industrial growth and emerged as the most politically and culturally progressive city in Spain. Barcelona and Modernity examines this remarkable seventy-one-year period, when Barcelona also reigned as one of the most dynamic centers of modernist art and architecture in Europe. Focusing on the Catalan Renaixença, Modernisme, Noucentisme, avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, and artistic reactions to the Spanish Civil War, essays by an extraordinary international team of scholars offer new insights into the work of such Catalan artists as Antoni Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí, among others, by setting them in context with the art of their teachers, colleagues, and rivals.

With approximately 350 works in a variety of media--painting, sculpture, photography, furniture, decorative arts, and architectural design--this intriguing book also explores how Catalan artists derived inspiration from local traditions while contributing their own innovations to international modernism. Broader in scope than any previous treatment of the subject, this book is sure to alter popular perceptions of Catalonia and become a fundamental text for years to come.

Nadine Dalton Speidel Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information - Library Journal

A Spanish waiter will offer a small plate of tapas specifically selected to enhance the taste and experience of the accompanying beverage, as well as to enhance the social atmosphere. This exhibition catalog of a show that will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, March 7 through June 3 surveys Barcelona's role in the European modernist art and architecture movement and mimics a Spanish waiter. The contributors editors Robinson and Jordi Falgàs are curator, modern European art, Cleveland Museum of Art, and a Cleveland Fellow in modern art, respectively, and Carmen Belen Lord is an independent art historian provide a wide assortment of social, economic, and cultural tidbits to go along with the 350 magnificent artworks produced in and around Catalonia, and the experience is grand. Thorough exploration of a 71-year period gradually builds a deeper understanding of the history of Barcelona, Catalonia, and Spain and its impact on the artists of the time. Readers will see the influence of Spain's defeat in the Spanish-American War, Catalonia's struggle for a national identity, Spain's neutrality in World War I, and more manifested in the very essence of the art itself. Furthermore, in addition to discovering Spanish artists they may not know well, readers will never look at Antoni Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia or Pablo Picasso's Guernicawith the same eyes again. Strongly recommended for libraries specializing in art history.

Biography

William H. Robinson is Curator of Modern European Art and Jordi Falgàs is Cleveland Fellow in Modern Art, both at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Carmen Belen Lord is an independent art historian and specialist in the history of Spanish art.