Description
The MNAC, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, fills the Palau Nacional, the huge domed palace on Montjuïc hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina. It is famous for its Romanesque church paintings, unmatched by any other museum, and for a thousand years of Catalan art.
Begin with the Romanesque murals, painted in the 11th to 13th centuries, mostly for village churches in the Pyrenees. The great star is the Christ in Majesty from the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll, a 12th-century masterpiece, among paintings from Sant Joan de Boí and Sant Quirze de Pedret.
The Gothic rooms follow, with altarpieces from Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia, and the mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca. Then come Renaissance and Baroque works, among them Velázquez and Zurbarán, Titian and Rubens.
The modern art collection traces Catalan art from the early 19th century to the 1940s, with the painters of the Modernista years: Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol, and Marià Fortuny, the country's finest 19th-century painter. Casas's famous tandem painting shows him and his friend Pere Romeu pedaling.
The Romanesque murals reached Barcelona thanks to a scare. In 1919 an American art dealer bought the frescoes of a monastery at Castell de Mur and had two Italian experts peel them off the walls with a technique called strappo. The paintings sailed to Boston. Catalonia was alarmed.
Its museum board found an answer: it hired the very same Italians. Between 1919 and 1923 they detached the paintings of many village churches in the Pyrenees and brought them to Barcelona. That rescue is the heart of the collection.
The building has a story too. The Palau Nacional was built from 1926 to 1929 for the International Exposition, with a dome inspired by St. Peter's in Rome and four towers modeled on Santiago de Compostela. It held a show of Spanish art with more than 5,000 works.
The museum took its present shape slowly, redesigned from the early 1990s by the architect Gae Aulenti and inaugurated in December 2004. The Oval Hall, 2,300 square meters under the great dome, serves for civic and cultural events.
Don't miss
• The Christ in Majesty from Sant Climent de Taüll.
• The Romanesque mural rooms.
• The Gothic altarpieces.
• The Modernista paintings.
• The Oval Hall.
Did you know?
• The Civil War sent the museum's works away for safety, some as far as Paris.
• The Palau's staircase is flanked by illuminated fountains designed by Carles Buïgas.
Begin with the Romanesque murals, painted in the 11th to 13th centuries, mostly for village churches in the Pyrenees. The great star is the Christ in Majesty from the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll, a 12th-century masterpiece, among paintings from Sant Joan de Boí and Sant Quirze de Pedret.
The Gothic rooms follow, with altarpieces from Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia, and the mural paintings of the Conquest of Majorca. Then come Renaissance and Baroque works, among them Velázquez and Zurbarán, Titian and Rubens.
The modern art collection traces Catalan art from the early 19th century to the 1940s, with the painters of the Modernista years: Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol, and Marià Fortuny, the country's finest 19th-century painter. Casas's famous tandem painting shows him and his friend Pere Romeu pedaling.
The Romanesque murals reached Barcelona thanks to a scare. In 1919 an American art dealer bought the frescoes of a monastery at Castell de Mur and had two Italian experts peel them off the walls with a technique called strappo. The paintings sailed to Boston. Catalonia was alarmed.
Its museum board found an answer: it hired the very same Italians. Between 1919 and 1923 they detached the paintings of many village churches in the Pyrenees and brought them to Barcelona. That rescue is the heart of the collection.
The building has a story too. The Palau Nacional was built from 1926 to 1929 for the International Exposition, with a dome inspired by St. Peter's in Rome and four towers modeled on Santiago de Compostela. It held a show of Spanish art with more than 5,000 works.
The museum took its present shape slowly, redesigned from the early 1990s by the architect Gae Aulenti and inaugurated in December 2004. The Oval Hall, 2,300 square meters under the great dome, serves for civic and cultural events.
Don't miss
• The Christ in Majesty from Sant Climent de Taüll.
• The Romanesque mural rooms.
• The Gothic altarpieces.
• The Modernista paintings.
• The Oval Hall.
Did you know?
• The Civil War sent the museum's works away for safety, some as far as Paris.
• The Palau's staircase is flanked by illuminated fountains designed by Carles Buïgas.