Cementeri de Montjuic

I was always drawn to cemeteries for the peculiar way people are remembered on their tomb stone, leaving etched hints of what they were like in life. The smaller the grave marker, the more humble a person's life must have been. I remember visiting the Old Russian Molokan Cemetery on 2^nd Street in Los Angeles and looking in awe at the pointy wood grave markers dating back to the late 1800s, many with no names and the markers being no taller than twelve inches from the ground.

As an adult, my interest in them has not diminished. When I travel, if there is a cemetery nearby, I go and photograph the way people bury their loved ones and compare how society influence and designates the type of grave marker a loved one should display. As you walk through Montjuic Cemetery, here in Barcelona, social classes are apparent by the size and money that was spent hiring renowned architects and artists to sculpt pretentious tomb stones and mausoleums. There is beauty in cemeteries often ignored; death being the obvious reason no artistic significance is usually associated with them by the general population. It is not the first place one contemplates to view sculptures or to seek artistic inspiration. However, there is  genuine interest to discover who sculpted the magnificent sculptures that decorate sepulchres and mausoleums. Some mausoleums look like mini cathedrals and ostentation can be seen by their size and height reaching up towards the heavens. There are masses of cut, chiseled, and formed stone houses with colorfully stained windows and intricate iron work now eroded. 

This morning I went to Montjuic Cemetery for a guided tour that began at 11.15 am in Spanish. I thought that there would be as few as 8-10 people. What a surprise to arrive and find a group of about 30 of us ready to discover works by Eusebio Arnau, Josep Llimona, and other popular Catalan sculptors of the 20^th century. The tour explained the history of Barcelona's two cemeteries, Poblenou the oldest and Montjuic the newest, and the population growth that led to the building of a new cemetery terraced in the Montjuic rocky hillside. The Montjuic quarry made it possible to build and give the cemetery its characteristic look by quarrying stone from it. Although the cemetery is for poor and rich alike, you can easily see walking through the cemetery the social stratification, with bourgeois families building immense mausoleums and the poor occupying small walled crypts.

The tour ended at the Fossar de la Pedrera, a common mass grave where 4,000 people were buried after being executed by Franco's fascist regime. The Quarry Grave is a tragic place when you  look at the large grassed expanse of land and imagine the ghastliness committed in a lone part of Montjuic. A quiet sadness permeates these solemn grounds in remembrance of all those who perished during the civil war and denied a decent burial by family members. The Fossar de la Pedrera is on the south side of the cemetery and worth visiting to observe the Memorials of people executed there during the Spanish Civil War and other small memorials of diverse groups who died supporting the Republican cause. The contrast with the Fossar de la Pedrera and the rest of Montjuic Cemetery is quietly perceptible. There you will not find ostentatiousness.

I swear that man looks like Edgar Allen Poe.

The top of this sepulchre is by Rossend Nobas I Ballbé in the realism style. 

Alpha symbol, the beginning of things...

and Omega the end.

Àngel Guimera, a popular writer born in the Canary Islands, but raised in Catalonia.

Pyramid inspired crypt.

Mason symbol

Owl, guardians of the night with Samson symbol.

Seraphim angels with Egyptian influences. The original design of this mausoleum had religious figures and not the pseudo Egyptian design with Seraphim angels. One angel holds a trumpet and the other a funeral wreath.  Catholic crosses at the top of their heads reaffirm Christian faith.

Bronze doors.

1894 Neogothic mausoleum by Eusebio Arnau I Mascort.

Recurring motif throughout the cemetery.

Gargoyles laughing metaphorically at people who have not reached the spiritual plane.

Greek influence

Frieze 

More mason symbols.

1894 Neoegyptian mausoleum sculpted by Pau Deulofeu I Palet and designed by architect Leandre Albbareda who designed Montjuic. 

Mausoleum by Eusebio Arnau. 

1913-1914 Modernism by Antoni Pujol 

A family cleans the resting place of a loved one.

Simple wall crypts.

"It is not good-bye forever, only a  good-bye for an instant."

1909-191 Neoclassicism by Martinez I Fortuny

Mausoleum built in 1906-07, Modernism by Rafael Atache

1903-1904 Modernism by Simó Cordomí 

"I am the resurrection and the life."

1889 Neoegyptian by Manuel Fuxà, I Leal, and Josep Campeny

Same port the Romans used--did I mention the cemetery is in front of the Barcelona Port? Yes, the buried here have ocean front views.

bench

The characteristic piled stones that give Montjuic its look.

The new tomb stones of black polished marble; these angels lack the majestic presence with the ones observed in other tombs.

Names of fallen people and believed to be buried in the mass burial grave here in Montjuic during the Spanish Civil War.

Fossar de la Pedrera, mass burial ground for Republicans executed during the Spanish Civil War at Montjuic by the Franco regime. 

Symbolic resting place of Lluís Companys, President of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. He was executed at Montjuic Castle during Francisco Franco's dictatorship by the fascist  Spanish army.

This is the cliff side where many were executed, a very remote area out of view from the Barcelonans.

In honor of the Jewish volunteers that helped Republicans fight against Franco.

American Còmics in Catalan

This morning while reading LaVanguardia in the Catalan version (to practice my Catalan and because my significant other prefers his native tongue), I paused at the comics page. I  normally skip over this page, but an illustration of a spider sitting on his web with a menu in Catalan caught my eye. Comic strip, Lio, by comic artist Mark Tatulli, shows a spider holding a carta de vins with his two front legs as his prey who is caught in the spider web looks away flustered at his captor's fancy taste to eat him and have some good wine.

Then I read the comic right above it, Calvin I Hobbes, and chuckled at the fact that I never took the time to read a comic strip that I  read every day without fail in the L.A. Times newspaper when I lived in California. In retrospect, I think it was finding Calvin and Hobbes in Catalan that put me off. It some how didn't seem genuine to me. It wasn't my American comic strip in my native language and felt that this new and strange language only spoken in a small region of Spain was stealing my identity, my culture, and my language. And now look at me, I now try to expose people to bits and pieces of this beautiful and enriching language.  Adeu!

Fem un Vermut! Let’s have a vermouth!

Saturday morning and we are out to see a gallery exhibition of drawings by Mel Ramos on Consell de Cent in Barcelona. We expected to be oohed and ahhed by his pinup girls on top of commercial products. Instead we walked out of the gallery in less than 10 minutes because his work was a display of pencil sketches sense his pop art element. The drawings were dull, uninteresting and without a sense of artistic purpose other than drawing nude women for future projects.

Disappointed we headed north on Rambla de Catalunya for a midday walk to see what had changed on this famous esplanade since we were last here in April for St. Jordi. Feeling a bit thirsty and hungry David asked, “¿Vols fer un vermut en La Bodegueta?”

Absolutely.

I must clarify that the question, to stop for a vermut,  has come to imply over the course of time, stopping for a drink and tapa before lunch time (dinar), and not the famous vermouth drink itself. To go for a vermouth has to be taken in context of the situation.

La Bodegueta (small wine cellar) has that old world charm that seems to be disappearing as minimalist bars pop open about town. I got a real kick out of the old tile floor so worn out throughout the decades by people who have come in to enjoy patatas bravas, chocos, and beer as we did. I really enjoy bars that transport me back in time. It’s the dark wood, brick, dim lighting and antique ambience of a place that encourages you to stop in for a vermouth on a languid Saturday. Stopping by the Bodegueta turned out to be the highlight of our dissabte and one stop to repeat again. Adeu!

Opps, I squeezed the lemon before taking the picture. These chocos (tender strips of squid) were really good!

Quines patatas braves mes bones! Not spicy as  normally served elsewhere. 

These are antique refrigerator boxes--I know what you were thinking they looked like.

The flooring doesn't seem to go with the bar and that's just one more thing that makes this bar interesting.

Surprisingly the bar was relatively empty. It's normally packed with people. This lady was reading her Barcelona guide book. 

 Steps leading out to Rambla de Catalunya. They also have terrace service outside.  

Feina Terminada!

This summer was remarkably dull. I didn't fly to California nor did I travel locally in Spain, but I did get a lot accomplished by staying home and getting home projects finished. I sort of felt imprisoned in my own home by not being able to leave even when the day's job was done. I had to vacuum, remove dust, mop, move furniture, and sweep up dirt on a daily basis. On the up side, we have a new patio floor and had the inside of our flat painted --two enormous projects that entailed my constant presence to supervise and let workers come in and out of the house to bring and remove project materials. Along the way I made friends with Eusebio and Marcos, the two construction workers who appeared to be my house guests over the summer. I at first complained about their slow approach to work on the first day, but over time I really came to enjoy their presence. They chipped away, dug, stirred mortar, and set patio tiles while we casually talked about money, food, foul weather, hunting for rabbits, and their summer homes in Huesca. When the work was completed, Eusebio brought me three different plantes. In gratitude of the incredible work they did and their honest suggestions of how the tile would look better set a certain way, I baked them both carrot cake, an all American pastís de pastanaga they were unfamiliar with.

Quips from Eusebio:
Díos mio!  (as he set tiles)
No es rico el que más tiene, sino el que menos necesita. 
Ya casi tengo vacaciones!
Buying property is a good investment.
El que paga manda.


Quips from Marcos:
Buying property is not a good investment.
Los niños son una hipoteca.
Eusebio, you're making me do all the work while you talk to Patri.
Me siento mal, estuve en el bar viendo la Super Copa hasta las dos (and he had too many beers).

Do not know where to plant this one.

geranium

I can't remember the name of this one though I have seen it before.