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| P936: F5.6 @1/1000 8.6mm ISO 200 |
I'm now a Gaudi convert...
Having spent time on a recent trip to Barcelona visiting Gaudi's Park Guell, his Casa Batillo and the Basilica Sagrada Familia, I found myself fascinated by his work and enjoying the colours, shapes and textures.
The Casa Batillo was definitely worth queueing up for...this is a house built in 1877 which Antoni Gaudi reworked for the industrialist Joseph Batilo Casanovas between 1904 and 1907.It is a very radical modernisation.The outside facade was reworked into fluid forms, undulations and a covering that shines with an intensity that changes according to where the sun is. Inside there are seven floors with galleries, curves ceilings and walls and devices created by Gaudi to provide more inner light and ventilation. There is an overwhelming sense of naturalist forms, a visual feast of colour, texture and shape which flows throughout the building and right out onto the roof. There you find a strange bulbous building and an amazing roof, more a sculpture than roof, covered with ceramic and painted glass.
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I really like the form of the roof here...
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| P944: F4 @ 1/1250 4.3mm ISO 125 |
The Sagrada Familia, however, is still a work in progress. Construction began in 1882. Gaudi took over
from the original architect in 1883 and dedicated 40 years of his life
to the building. After he died in
1926, anarchists blew up his detailed plans and model in the 1930s,
funds ran out and the current ongoing work is really a matter of
guesswork.
The outside feels very much Gaudi..The interior is beautiful. The nave shaped in such a way as to suggest a forest of columns. The stained-glass windows filter the light as Gaudi had wished, to simulate the lighting that the interior of a forest receives through the leaves of trees. Its truly magical and hard to capture photographically.
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I can understand why Gaudi's work is so popular across the world as much I can see why it would not necessarily appeal to some.In many ways his undulating organic forms, vibrant use of colour for exterior coverings and interior design must have shouted out against the conventional architecture of his time and to some extents still does. His architecture very much draws inspiration from his passion for architecture, nature and religion and benefits from great attention to detail outside and with the interiors of his buildings. His work incorporates many different crafts ranging from stained glass, ceramics, carpentry and wrought ironwork - becoming very much an innovator. I really like his ceramic mosaics made of waste pieces and strange exteriors ..more a emotional response than perhaps a critical appreciation. Certainly a need to find out more about the man...
So reading more about Gaudi, I find that he came under the influence of neo-Gothic art and oriental techniques and became part of the Modernista movement also known as Catalan modernism ( which until now I had never heard of) which reached its peak at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Apparently its main form of expression was in architecture, but also involved other arts especially design and decorative ones as well as being a literary movement. Equivalent to something like Art Nouveau in France and the Glasgow style in Scotland... at this stage I'm finding myself entering an ever increasing virgin territory of art movements that I know little about....time for some more reading around.
