Photos of the Catalan Gothic Painting & Sculpture Art – MNAC

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Photos of the Catalan Gothic Painting & Sculpture Art, National Art Museum of Catalonia (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya) Barcelona. Photos by Photographer Paul E Williams.    (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Catalan Gothic Painting & Sculpture Art

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Photos of the Catalan Gothic Painting & Sculpture Art, National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya), Barcelona, Spain.

The Incredible MNAC Catalan Gothic Art Collection

One of the most spectacular and important collections of Medieval Art in the world is held at the National Museum of Catalan in Barcelona,

The MNAC Catalan Gothic Sculpture and Paintings are from the 13th to 15th century. The artworks cover works from different Gothic stylistic phases showing various different techniques of mural paintings; panel paintings; stone, ivory and wood sculpture; metalworking and enamels.

Catalan Gothic

The earliest Catalan Gothic art was monumental sculpture, on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys.The Catalan Gothic style is tied closely to French Gothic although there are influences from Italy as can be seen in the the Triptych of Sant Vicenç d’Estopanyà, probably by an immigrant Italian artist. As well as in altarpieces by the Serra brothers.

The MNAC Gothic collection shows the development of the Gothic style from its stylistically naive beginnings to the great accomplishments of Jaume Cascalla.

Transition from Romanesque to Gothic

Early Gothic art, like its Romanesque predecessor, is still two dimensional and heavily steeped in the iconography of Byzantine Art. As the Gothic period progresses we see a Humanist element enter the artworks. Expressions and postures become less rigid. The subjects in the paintings are depicted with emotions. They become smaller in the compositions as the background becomes more important. Slowly background landscapes and settings become important to the composition. The Head of Christ by Jaume Cascalls heralds the realistic humanist style of the Renaissance that will overtake the Gothic style in popularity.

The Serra family were highly influential in steering the course of Catalan painting during the closing decades of the 14th century. Jaume Cascalls is one of the most important sculptors of the fourteenth century in Catalonia. This is borne out by his involvement for almost thirty years with the project of the royal pantheon in Poblet, for King Peter the Ceremonious, and with other large undertakings of the time. Today, on stylistic grounds, he is credited with this ‘Head of Christ’, which must have formed part of a sculptural group of the Holy Sepulchre.

The MNAC Catalan Gothic collection contains artworks by Jaume Cascalls: Pere Sanglada, and the paintings Pere Serra: Lluís Borrassà: Bernat Martorell and Jaume Huguet.