Wednesday, July 11th Culture

The inside of Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

     We all woke up at 8:00, heading downstairs for some breakfast, all still in our pajamas.  After we scarfed down our breakfast, we headed back to our rooms to take our showers and get ready for our day.  Once we all had showered, we headed to the train station to put our bags in lockers.  Once we got to the train station, we headed in and found the locker area, renting a locker for six hours.  After we had put all our bags in lockers, everyone gave his key to David for safekeeping, and we headed to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, an art museum in Barcelona.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya // Culture

The Beheading of Saint Baudilus by Lluís Dalmau

     Once we got in, we headed first to the Medieval Romanesque collection of the museum.  There we found art from the 11th to 13th centuries such as murals and panel paintings.  Matt was extremely excited about the medieval art, while Evan Cope was looking forward to the Running of the Bulls that we were going to be watching the next day.  We later headed to the Medieval Gothic Art collection, which housed art from the 13th to 15th centuries from painters such as Jaume Huguet, Lluís Dalmau, Bernat Martorell and Lluís Borrassà, and sculptors such as Jaume Cascalls and  Pere Sanglada.  It included pieces like "The Beheading of Saint Baudilus" and many more.

     After we visited the Medieval Gothic Art collection, we headed to the Renaissance and Baroque Art collection with art from the 16th and 18th centuries.  One example of art from this era is "Descent from the Cross", a painting depicting Jesus being taken down from the cross.  There were many different religious statues and paintings, showing how important religion, and more specifically Christianity, was to Spain in this time period.  After we had explored that collection, we then moved on to the Cambó Bequest collection, a collection full of art from the 14th to 19th centuries donated to the museum by Francesc Cambó, a politician of the 20th century.  This collection included assorted works that filled the gap between the medieval and modern art collections.

Descent from the Cross by an unknown artist

     The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection included many works by Italian artists, still having a majority Christianity-based, showing how important Christianity was to artists in these time periods.  We later headed into the Modern Art collection, the largest collection in the museum with hundreds of art pieces on display.

     We then left the museum around 12:30 PM and headed out for lunch at Can Dende.  After we ate lunch, we headed back to the train station, picked up our stuff from our lockers, and headed to the waiting area for our train.  As we waited, everyone else played games on his phone aside from David, who pulled back out his computer and continued work in his Minecraft world.  Once the train arrived, we all piled onto the train and got comfortable in our seats.  David again pulled out his computer, but this time he pulled up a game for everyone to play as a group.  Throughout the entire trip, we all played assorted games using David's laptop.  Once we got to Pamplona, we headed to our hotel and continued playing party games on David laptop, but now using the TV to show on a bigger screen.  After a few hours of playing, we were all tired and were getting bored of the games that David had.  We all returned to our own rooms and fell asleep almost instantaneously, tired from the day that we had had.