The magnificent collections at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), covering from the 11th to the 20th century, illustrate, amongst others, two outstanding periods in Catalan art: the Romanesque, with a collection unique in the world; and Modernisme, featuring outstanding works by such artists as Antoni Gaudí, among others. The museum site also commands spectacular views over the city.
© Photo M.A.S
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29 March 2012 - 15 July 2012
Catalonia 1400. The International Gothic Style
The MNAC is preparing its first large exhibition on one of the most creative cycles in the history of Catalan art, the one spanning the period in European Gothic art known as the 'International Gothic style'. This period, which began at the end of the 14th century and lasted until the end of the 15th, produced some of the most outstanding Catalan artists of all time, who have earned a place in the history of European art, as in the case of Lluís Borrassà, Rafael Destorrents, Pere Joan and Bernat Martorell.
Catalonia 1400 will bring together great masterpieces like the four panels with narrative scenes from Bernat Martorell's Retable of Saint George, which is now kept in the Louvre. These panels probably came from the Chapel of Saint George in the Palau de la Generalitat. There will also be other complete altarpieces by Lluís Borrassà, Joan Mates, Martorell and Jaume Ferrer. Also forming part of the exhibition will be the two high points of Catalan Gothic miniatures --a type of work rarely exhibited in public--, the famous Missal of Saint Eulàlia, by Rafael Destorrents, which has not left Barcelona Cathedral for years, and Martorell's Psalter and Book of Hours, kept in the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona.