As we continue to explore Barcelona Spain, we selected a museum in the Gothic District that is dedicated to all things Pablo Picasso. I like much of his work, but mostly prior to the Cubism period. Our apartment is located in the L’Eixample district that is a 48 minute walk to the museum. After some research we decided to walk it and maybe take a taxi back home. We had just arrived from Florence Italy where everywhere in the older historic area is walkable and have found that Barcelona is much larger and is beginning to dampen our desire to walk everywhere. So, let’s see how it went…
Gothic District
The Gothic Quarter is the historic center of the old city of Barcelona. It is beautiful, clean, and can easily be walked. Many restaurants, shops, and lovely narrow streets that are nicely decorated. It stretches from La Rambla to Via Laietana, and from the Mediterranean seafront to the Ronda de Sant Pere. There are plenty of palaces, houses and Gothic churches that reveals the city’s medieval past dating back to the mid 1800’s.
The plaza below is located in the heart of the Gothic area. It has many shops and fine restaurants all along the lower level. We walked all around and browsed for the obligatory snack or meal.
Pablo Picasso
We enjoy visiting the local history and art museum wherever we happen to be. Barcelona was the home of Picasso for various periods of his life. While he spent most of his life in France, he had many family ties to Spain and this city. Born in 1881 and lived until 1973, he had a long and very productive life. He was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.
The museum is setup in chronological order, and I’ve included several photos of his work and descriptions here if you wish to learn more. I really liked his more impressionist work and found the cubism and surrealism interesting but was not exactly my favorite.
Picasso’s personal life was a complete muddled mess as he had many affairs as well as wives. He also made a few film appearances as himself. Now, I need to find one of them. One of the most impressive facts is how prolific he was. Many times more paintings than any other artist. At his death there were more than 45,000 unsold works in his estate.
The painting above is his sister’s first communion painted when he was 14 years old
Wrap Up
What a beautiful day it was! 68 degrees and mostly sunny. Well, we did walk to our destination and around the Gothic Quarter and back to our apartment. It was not exactly as planned but we got a 7.2-mile walking day in the books! We both agreed the next time would make better use of taxi or Uber. Heck, I’m happy that I can walk that much at 70!
We either selected the perfect time to be in Europe (mid-October to mid-late November) or else got very lucky with the weather. In Italy we had excellent and warm weather only starting to cool off when we left. In Barcelona, it was much warmer from the current temps in Florence. And no rain! From a heavy jacket in Florence to just a long sleeve shirt in Spain.
Thanks for following along! Leave a comment, as we love to read them. Take care and God Bless.
Great stuff Randy … what a treasure to see so much of Picasso’s work.
Thanks Kevin. It was interesting to learn of all of Picasso’s different periods.
Spain sounds like a good investment if your travel time. We really enjoyed our time in Spain as well.