{"id":1716,"date":"2019-03-20T13:13:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2025-02-27T17:20:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T23:20:35","slug":"two-europes-in-catalunya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2019\/03\/20\/two-europes-in-catalunya\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Europes in Catalunya"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\r\n

March 17, 2019<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It seems fitting that as we entered Spain, we were greeted with a sign (in English) that touted \u201cSelf- determination is a right, not a crime.\u201d\u00a0 A century ago, at Versailles, Woodrow Wilson would have been pleased. Today that sentiment is recaptured in Spain by the efforts of Catalonia to reverse the decision, a result of the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492, that created Spain as we know it.\u00a0 A referendum called by the Parliament of Catalunya a few years ago, in violation of the Spanish constitution, led to Madrid\u2019s jailing the Catalan officials who did not flee Spain, and they are currently on trial.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Catalunya had a separate history from much of the rest of Spain (which, incidentally has four official languages, including Castilian, Basque and Catalan), much of which I learned about yesterday.\u00a0 Part of the day we spent looking at the present, or at least the last 150 years, where Barcelona has produced artists such as Picasso and Miro, and architects like Gaudi and welcomed Mies Van Der Rohe to build a pavilion that now stands as a museum of his accomplishments.\u00a0 They\u2019ve left impressive marks around the world (see the Art Institute and IIT), and impressive tributes here in Barcelona.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Indeed, the Sagrada Familia, a modern basilica, is one of those buildings so iconic that when you see it, you know you are in Barcelona.\u00a0 Started by Antoni Gaudi nearly 150 years ago, it\u2019s still unfinished, and new architects (12 I understand) are attempting to complete the building, which is Spain\u2019s most visited monument.\u00a0 That\u2019s a good thing, because it\u2019s funded solely by tour money and requires about $2 million a month in maintenance and development.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Gaudi never liked straight lines, and it\u2019s interesting to see what he did to some apartment buildings around the city\u2014the Catalan contribution to modernism.\u00a0 One looks like caves (he admired Catholic hermits), with a crowning mountain on top.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>The Picasso museum houses mostly works from his younger years, when his father (a painter) tried his best to convince his son if he wanted to make a living he would have to learn portraiture.\u00a0 While some of the portraits border on \u201cclassic,\u201d Picasso soon moved into blue and cubism, the kind of work that\u2019s mostly in museums elsewhere.\u00a0 Guernica, the only piece Carolyn likes, is in Madrid.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I, on the other hand, enjoyed the museum itself\u2014a well put together five renaissance palaces\u2014the best room for me being the one left from the old palace, but I\u2019ve been known to prefer baroque to Braque.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>I also enjoyed my tour of the old city.\u00a0 I had to visit the Cathedral, started around 1300 and finished 150 years later, with a neo-Gothic fa\u00e7ade added in the late 19th <\/sup> century. The side chapels were all either 1400 or late 17th<\/sup> century, either Renaissance or Baroque, stunning tributes to the wealth of medieval Barcelona.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Once the home of the Kings of Aragon, Barcelona\u2019s history dates from Octavius Augustus, to whom a temple still stands.\u00a0 In fact, under the palace of the king, part of the building has been excavated as one of the most interesting Roman ruins I\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 What is uncovered is the industrial heart of the Roman city (1-4 centuries), including a fish sauce factory, a winery, and, my favorite, a laundry.\u00a0 I learned that one of the \u201ccleansing agents\u201d was urine, which the laundry collected outside its doors in pots for the purpose.\u00a0 The company paid a tax to be able to gather the precious ingredient, which turned to ammonia. Carolyn doubted my theory about how I could help her with laundry!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

That building, part of the palace of the King, also traced the history of religious spots on the site, from Augustus who was treated as a god, through the introduction of Christianity (a la Constantine, who in 313 declared Christianity the official religion. It came too late to save Euliala, a martyr in 303 whose body lies under the present Cathedral); then came the subsequent occupation by the Christian Visigoths, the Muslims (for about 80 years), then the Counts of Barcelona and finally the splendid Cathedral .<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The treat today was to have been the impressive National Museum of Catalan Art, which houses a collection of medieval art rescued from churches about to be demolished.\u00a0 Alas, it being Sunday, the museum closed early, so we contented ourselves with a three-hour tour on the On-Off bus, which took us past another shrine in the city\u2014FCB, the football stadium of Barcelona, home of Lionel Messi and lots of people who think football is played with your foot.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The real treat was the discovery that at 11 this morning the symphony was doing Beethoven\u2019s 9th<\/sup> symphony.\u00a0 What a novel idea\u2014brunch with Beethoven.\u00a0 The unusual feature was as simultaneous performance art of people and slides. The highlight, of course, is the final movement, the setting of Schiller\u2019s Ode to Joy, which is the unofficial anthem of the European Union\u2014the statement of the \u2018Other\u201d Europe, that all men are brothers, including Castilians and Catalans.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 17, 2019 It seems fitting that as we entered Spain, we were greeted with a sign (in English) that touted \u201cSelf- determination is a right, not a crime.\u201d\u00a0 A century ago, at Versailles, Woodrow Wilson would have been pleased. Today that sentiment is recaptured in Spain by the efforts of Catalonia to reverse the … Continue reading “Two Europes in Catalunya”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8412,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/8412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}