Eating tapas and drinking in surrealism

Tapas and beer at la Boqueria Market in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter

After breakfast…

For us, vacationing in Europe means lots of walking, eating, and visiting museums. And in Barcelona that means visiting the Surrealists—Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso, who each have museums of their own.

These young geniuses came of age in the early 1900s and were mature artists in the 1930s when civil war broke out in Spain, followed by World War II,  another dark and frightening time. 

The Surrealists expressed their imaginations by breaking with the realistic conventions of traditional painting and giving free rein to subconscious interpretations of reality. For Picasso and Miro, that included capturing the struggle of the Spanish Civil war and the plight of the common man. Dali, however, embraced wealth and pursued fame above politics. His ostentatious behavior and support of dictator Francisco Franco were so offensive that the Surrealists kicked him out of their club. He didn’t care.

I can’t help but wonder: Does political affiliation matter? Or does great art transcend politics? To put it another way, Does art infused with the human struggle make a deeper connection than art that is created for its own sake?

“I am the drug…” Salvador Dali

Dali devoted the last years of his life to creating the Dali Museum in his birthplace Figueres

He took delight in absurd manifestations

But he was also able to create realistic paintings, as he did with the photograph of his wife and muse Gala

Photograph of Gala

Painting of Gala

When asked in the sixties if his art was influenced by psychedelics, Dali who was not a drug user famously answered, “I am the drug.”

In this painting of Gala, Dali shows his “nuclear mysticism” style

A red dot, eyes and feet, stars and planets

Joan Miro is even more abstract than Dali. I like his simplistic approach to complex subjects, but Don says you shouldn’t have to study an artist to appreciate his art. 

Reaching, reaching, reaching…but for what?

This seemingly simple drawing contains many of Miro’s favorite symbols: a red dot, a blue sky, and a penciled star.

Miro’s anger at injustice manifested itself in art. In this angry painting Miro destroyed the canvas to capture the irrelevance of painting.

Although most of his work is abstract, Miro mastered traditional painting before embracing surrealism.

Portrait of a young girl from early in his career.

The power of emotional shapes

My favorite artist was Picasso, whose work is so powerful that the shapes and colors convey meaning in a way that speaks to me. He was so prolific and worked in so many forms and styles that it’s impossible to capture in a silly little blog. But here are some of my favorites.

Photo of Picasso from the Picasso Museum in Barcelona

Picasso mastered perspective, color, dimension, and meaning as a young artist in this painting titled “Science and Charity”

View from Picasso’s hotel window onto a Barcelona street, forever linking Barcelona with cubism.

When Picasso moved to Paris he emulated the work of Toulouse Lautrec, evident in this bold portrait nicknamed the Morphine Addict.

The Dwarf is another famous painting from his early days in Paris.

When his friend committed suicide Picasso began his blue period which lasted almost four years, until 1904.

Picasso often painted over his early paintings. This still life was originally a picture of a woman seated at a table. Scientific techniques have uncovered the paint and forms used in the original painting.

Picasso’s most famous anti-war painting, Guernica, is at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid. But many other abstract works are on display in Barcelona. Both of the paintings below are interpretations of a famous portrait of the Royal Family called Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez.

After all that art we were ready for a break on Las Ramblas.