There is an artist/architect named Antoni Gaudí whose work you can see everywhere you turn in Barcelona; in every souvenir shop, on literally every street corner, on each map and guide book of the city you see- Gaudí is there. The style he used in his art is very distinctly his own, and is not particularly easy to define. He really is one- of- a- kind, but to me his art was much more than that.
I am not a huge artsy person. While I can appreciate talent and hard work, sometimes I find it rather difficult to understand more abstract pieces or art that I think a 2-year old could do. I felt this way when we visited the Picasso museum in Malaga- sometimes I could hold value in his work, while other times, seeing odd cubism paintings and weird brush strokes, I just simply didn't "get it".
I felt differently about Gaudí for some reason, though, despite his masterpieces being extremely abstract and hard to grasp. It sounds weird to say, but I felt connected to him through his art during my time in Barcelona.
The first Gaudí art I feasted my eyes upon was the Casa Batlló, an oddly placed, colorful building that stood stoically on what seemed like an ordinary street corner. Suddenly while walking down the sidewalk it was there. The front of the building has several balconies that look like skeletons or Mardi Gras masks, and the entire front is covered in glittery tiles.
I didn't do any research about Barcelona before coming, so everything we saw and experienced while there was a complete surprise to me, which was so fun and let me learn about the city as I was in it, rather than reading about it ahead of time. In that same regard, I am very glad I didn't see pictures of Gaudí's art before seeing it in real life, with my own eyes. I still am unable to fully put to words how I felt about that first building, but I knew that I liked what I saw.
We didn't make it up to the rooftop unfortunately, which I hear is an amazing sight, but we continued on in search of more of his work.
It is extremely cliche to say that I fell more and more in love with Gaudí with every work we saw of his, but it is so true. I not only started to appreciate his whimsical corridors, the lack of straight lines, the contract between the inside and the outside of each building, but I really started to connect on a more personal level with his style of art.
Here's the thing, also I feel this is about to get very words-y and not make much sense: Most of the time I feel weird. I feel out of place, like I don't particularly belong in one place for a long enough time to call it my own. I have difficulty putting words to feelings, and most of the time what I say and the emotion I portray to the world is only a fraction of how I honestly feel inside or what I really would like to say. Sometimes I have the honest thought that the physical world that we live in right now doesn't have the capacity to express what goes on with me internally. Words usually are inadequate, but they are the best I can do to show others how I feel and in the way I do. I think that if I could purely express myself, it would be in a way that no one could understand. I am not saying that other people don't also have depth or complexity, but I am in a constant and tiring struggle to make other understand particularly and exactly what I mean at any given time.
This all being said, I think this is how Gaudí felt. I think this helps explain his art. He did not see the physical world in the same way that most people do. He saw vivid color. He saw swirls and waves and nature and so many other things instead. Also, as a side note, it makes me wonder about his psychological well-being, in that, for a very stretched example, people who suffer from, let's say, body dysmorphic disorder, do not see in the mirror (which is a direct reflection of the physical world, obviously) what is actually there in this physical world I'm talking about. So, Gaudí obviously could see with his eyes, but the way in which he interpreted color, structure, design were very different from how it actually is.
I remember saying out loud, which came out very weird- and broken-sounding, while we were on the roof of Casa Milà that I kind of "get" this Gaudí guy. I see where he's coming from. I said that if I was more creative and had better outlets of expressing myself (i.e. sculpture, painting, architecture design) that my art might look like his does. I can see this in the way that I write, for instance I don't write chronologically, I usually forget what I wanted to say in the first place, and I am constantly interrupting myself and adding interjections and explanations along the way. If I designed a building the way I tell a story, the top floor would be somewhere in the middle, there would be winding staircases, bright and insane colors, no sense of what is up or down or even straight or curved. This is why I think my mind sees the world similarly to how Gaudí's did.
It really became apparent when we were at Park Güell. Below these beautiful and ornate benches drenched in mosaic tiles, is an opening out to where the famous Salamander is located. In the opening are maybe 30 or so columns that hold up the roof and on the ceiling in various parts are wonderful mosaic pictures and designs. Again, the colors make your eyes water because of the brilliance. This area wasn't too Gaudí-esque until I noticed that the very outside columns were not upright, but rather slanted inward just a tad. It created a whimsical and unreal sense of distance and distorted the ceiling, making it seem almost unstable. I loved this touch to the architecture, because I "got" it. I said to myself, "Yes, those columns should be tilted in, yes those mosaics should be placed in this specific place".
Then there was La Sagrada Familia. When I try to make sense of it and put words to it, they fail miserably. This church is literally the only of its kind in the entire world. We have seen many cathedrals while being in Europe, and they all seem to mash together after a while. They are all gorgeous in their own sense, but they are mostly all built and structured in a similar manner. The fact that La Sagrada Familia was not like the others made me fall even more in love with it.
I remember the group of us, Olivia, two friends from South Africa we met in our hostel, and myself were laughing, having a jolly-good time, talking loudly, etc as we approached the main door of the church. Once we stepped through the doors, sentences were literally cut of mid-word. When I say our mouths hung open in awe, I am not exaggerating. I still cannot describe it.
We learned later that while Gaudí was a very religious man, he also was very interested in nature and the world. This is very apparent in La Sagrada Familia. The columns that seemingly stretch up to heaven branch off like trees at the ceiling. The internal skeleton is all a pristine shade of white or light gray, and the way he structured the stained glass, with the brightest and most magnificent colors in the entire world, shone just so, in a way that is impossible to say with words.
The sun was beginning to set as we were there, so the light that came in through the windows dripped over the columns in the deepest shade of scarlet, grass green and Caribbean blue stained the floors, and my skin turned every color of the rainbow as I walked along the windows. This place of worship wasn't a secret one, there were no tiny, locked doors, gated- off alters, or curtains covering the whispers of the Catholic church. Instead the entire world Gaudí had created was open, airy, peaceful. I felt serene and at ease. I was not crowded and being screamed at by Baroque-style Marys and Jesuses and I wasn't forced to be quiet, although everyone was anyway. No obnoxious gold hung from anywhere, no velvet was draped, no melancholy was felt.
Sun shone through windows on the ceiling, the columns seemed to be light from within. A fresh, light smell was in the air, and when I looked around, I saw Gaudí everywhere. He was in each corner, in every column, in every inch of vivid stained glass. Although I am not a religious person, I felt closer to the universe spiritually than I have ever felt in any Catholic cathedral. I understand Gaudí's connection to nature, and I felt that connection via him, myself. It was as though this was his last way to give the world a chance to see what the inter-workings of his mind were like. It was as though, because he knew he would never see the finished product (they are still building it to this day) while he was alive, he entrusted in others to interpret what he might have wanted it to be like. He knew that he was not the only person in the world who saw the world as he did, he knew that there were other weirdos out there.
I feel as though I was a part of his vision, I comprehended and felt what he wanted me to feel and understand. I was a part of that building, thus I was a part of Gaudí.
We spent nearly 2 hours in the cathedral, learning about the different types of columns, drinking in the colors, walking along the roof. I just hope that someday when I take my children, and then later take my grandchildren to see this amazing sight, that I will say "I was here when there were only 4 steeples, when the stained glass was still incomplete".
I hope other people feel the way I felt going into La Sagrada Familia that day. I would give anything to share the love and the magnificence with everyone. Just as Gaudí did.
La Casa Batlló
On the roof of La Casa Milà
The only picture I got inside La Sagrada Familia because naturally my camera died just as we entered the most beautiful place in the world.
Anyway, you can see the "tree branches" at the ceiling, and the stained glass colors reflecting off the columns. This photo does nothing to do it justice. I'm almost ashamed to share it.
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