Phot-o' the Day: Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain.

Be careful where you check your cellphone messages. You never know who might be behind you.

For today's Phot-o' the Day, let's take the funicular up Montjuic hill in Barcelona, Spain, to the Fundació Joan Miró. This is from outside the museum dedicated to the art of Catalan native Joan Miró. I hate that cancer upon our culture known as "modern art," and the even more virulent pestilence known as "post-modern art," but I love the art of Joan Miró. His art depicts actual tangible things -- albeit from a fever dream perspective.  There is extraordinary talent and creativity evident, unlike the vast bulk of the modern and post-modern works.

From my visit to Barcelona. Tourist-saturated Barcelona. Been there. Loved it. I can't imagine any reason why I would go back.

Visited September 2015.

Living In a Terracotta World

At the intersection of Gaudi Boulevard and Flintstone Way

About a mile outside of Villa de Leyva is the Casa Terracota, the Terracotta House, a house (allegedly) built entirely of unreinforced ceramic terracotta.  This was my priority for my visit to Villa de Leyva.

The house is equal parts Antoni Gaudi and Fred Flintstone.

With a few Joan Miró like touches thrown in for decoration.

The house was designed and built by Colombian architect Octavio Mendoza, built from clay that had been left to bake in the sun.  Other than metal and glass ornamentation, this place is ceramic (although a few decorative touches felt to my un-expert touch like plaster of Paris, rather than ceramics).

It was only a 20-minute walk, which included these two dogs barking at everyone from their second floor vantage point:

I walked past a real estate development with lots for sale.  Just like in the USA, the grand entryway was the first thing built for this real estate development:

Lots of these grand entryways in Las Vegas are still standing with no development behind them 10 years-plus after the real estate collapse.  Let's hope this one in Colombia fairs better.

Finding the dirt road, off the main road on which the Casa Terracota may be found, was tricky.  I ran into a German woman, whose English (and Spanish) were as good as my Spanish, who apparently had been wandering up and down the main road looking for the Terracotta House.  We decided to take this dirt road:

And after a couple of minutes walking, there it was:

How did I know this was the right dirt road when I am walking around sans GPS (like the Flintstone Age!)?  It was the dirt road that I saw a few people and cars heading down.

Even the neighbors got in on the "terracotta" theme action:

 It looks beautiful baking in the sun:

Let's have a look around, shall we?

Metal animal sculptures abound:

Refreshment stand:

I'm visible over the owl's right shoulder, so, technically, this qualifies as a selfie:

I don't know if this part of the house is supposed to remind one of a giant dinosaur tail -- there are major fossil excavation sites in the area -- but this part is definitely more Fred Flintstone than Antoni Gaudi:

And as we climb toward the roof, it becomes more Gaudi, which is fitting, because Gaudi loved to weird-up his roofs:

View from the top:

Phallus-like chimney, which is fitting as, again, there are local allusions.  The "El Infiernito," or "Little Hell" site is nearby filled with giant stone phalluses carved up by those porn-loving indigenouses from a thousand years ago, the Muiscas.

I'm guessing some turista knocked the head off this one awhile back:

View of the surrounding area from the roof.  (Those are pipes, not a solar panel, by the way.)

Do you want to see the kitchen?

And over the stove hangs a metal fish:

I like that.  I like that a lot.

The terracotta house even has terracotta toys:

And let's have a look at the giant insect chandelier:

Upstairs, shall we?

Here's a terracotta bedroom.  Fortunately, that is not a terracotta mattress:

I like forsaking the terracotta for some colorful decorative ceramic tile here, in the master bath:

Overview of the living room, although I guess this is technically more of a "family room" since it's off the kitchen.

Every bedroom should have weird metal sculptures:

Again, kind of Miró in my amateur estimation.

And here's something you don't see everyday:  a metal insect chair:

And here's an antique from the Fred Flintstone Era:

A 13-inch cathode-ray tube TV set!  Baa-dmmp, baa-dmmmp.

Getting terracotta-ed out?  Let's go outside again.

The pond here doesn't look like a healthy edition to the house:

Nor does this giant insect window covering, for that matter:

And what's this body doing on the lawn?

It's art!

As is this:

El fin.

Walking to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Looking over the City of Barcelona from Montjuic

Today is the final day in Barcelona.  And like the final day of every long vacation, I am dog-tired.  But it's the last day to see the place, so taking an off-day is not an option.

But a low-key final day most certainly was an option.  So it was off to the Pablo Picasso museum.

The museum is housed in five separate but now connected mansion in the historic La Ribera district of Old Barcelona.  

The museum was founded by Picasso's long time friend and secretary Jaume Sabartes.  It opened before Picasso died.  Picasso was intimately involved in the planning of the museum.  But he never saw it.  He vowed never to step foot in Spain until Franco died.  Franco out-lived him.

The museum houses an extensive collection of Picasso's early years, including some amazing pieces done in his teen years, as well as an extensive collection from the World War I era "Blue Period."  The collection is largely chronological, but, strangely, from the late 1910's, the collection fast forwards to his work in the late 1950's.  We miss the time period when Picasso went completely off the rails with cubism and placing both eyeballs on the same side of the nose.  The day art died.  We miss all that and head into his major works post-Elvis, most specifically his studies on Velazquez's masterpiece, "La infanta doña Margarita de Austria."  We saw Dali's take on the same piece at his museum in Figueres.

Why am I saying and not showing?  Because the museum enforces a strict "no photography" policy.   It's like all the single artist museums are anti-recording.  Except Dali.  His museum is the art world equivalent of a Grateful Dead show.

So let's scoot away.

Speaking of Elvis, I never went to the Barba Rossa, as advertised in the Barcelona Metro, for one of their "Burgers of the Route 66," specifically the awesomely delicious looking "Fat Elvis Burger."  You have to save some things for your next trip to a city.

So after getting cut into the little cubes at the Picasso museum, it was off to the Plaça d'Espanya to check out the surrounding neighborhood and go to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

This is Plaça d'Espanya, a.k.a. Plaza de España.  This was an area largely developed for the 1929 world's fair in Barcelona.

Also just north of Plaça d'Espanya is Parque de Joan Miró.

It's worth walking a block north of the Metro just to see this giant Joan Miró sculpture piece.

So I will stand in front of that giant Joan Miró sculpture in Parque de Joan Miró and take my final selfie of this trip.

But other than that, it's just a park.  With grass.  Some trees.  Dogs (even though a sign says "no dogs").  I was hoping there would be more Joan Miró stuff at the park, but it's more "parque" than it is "de Joan Miró."

Notice the red brick circular building in the background of the giant Joan Miró sculpture?  Here's a closer look.

I had a guess as to what that building would be, seeing as it was a round open air arena in Spain.

I asked what appeared to be a TV news crew what that building was.  The man in the suit was struggling with the English, so he switched to Spanish and said that was the "plaza de toros."  I was right.  It was the old bullfighting ring.  Bullfighting is not indigenous to Catalunya.  Apparently it was introduced into the region when Franco was trying to make Catalonia less Catalonian and more Spanish.  It has been re-purposed into a theater.
  

Plaça d'Espanya, as viewed from another angle.

And now walking into the old exposition area.

To get to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

There are a lot of steps to climb from here to get up to the museum.  Fortunately, there are some escalators for some of the up journey.

The building is beautiful.  Here it is posing behind four columns that symbolize something,

Here is a view without symbolism.

So close, yet so many more stairs to climb.

Only to find out that the museum closes on Sunday at 3:00PM and it was 3:15PM by the time we climbed all those stairs.  But at least the views from the top were still viewable at that hour.

I am now sight-seed out.  Time to wash up for dinner.