MNAC

The museum to which we have returned most often is MNAC - The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. On my most recent visit I finally took a camera.

MNAC's primary draw is its collection of Romanesque works - fresco murals, altar frontals, and wooden sculpture- from the late 11th to 13th century. It often is described as the best such collection in the world. Most come from tiny Romenesque churches in the Catalan Pyrenees, many in small hamlets.

The frescoes were removed from the churches between 1919 and 1923 to preserve them for the national museum after those of one Catalan church were removed and sent to Boston (where it remains on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts).

MNAC has installed the murals in replicas of the apses, niches, or pillars and naves from which they came, giving a sense both of how they looked in the churches, and of extraordinary level and quality of decoration of these tiny churches. This installation shows murals not only on the apse, but also on pillars and slide aisles of the nave.
This one, of murals from a side apse of Pedret dating from 1190-1230, shows how even small spaces were decorated.
The figures in the murals are simple and strongly colored. I find them directly and intensely engaging, in part because, as Robert Hughes notes, many of the figures stare directly, almost confrontationally, at the viewer. Many murals also are filled with fantastic creatures the artists created as they converted the words of scripture into images.

The Pantocrator of the central apse of Sant Climent de Taul, painted in 1123.
Figures surrounding the Pantocrator.
David slaying Goliath from Sant Climent de Taul.
The apse of Aneu, painted 1090-1120, showing Seraphim with six wings covered with eyes (as mentioned in the Apocalypse of Saint John).

Equally impressive are the altar frontals and paintings. Again, the style is simple and direct, and the colors, especially reds, are strikingly vivid even after all these years.

The Frontal of La Seu d'Urgell from the mid-12th century, showing Christ and the Apostles.
The Frontal of Avia, about 1200.
Another frontal depicting, quite explicitly, the martyrdom of saints.
And this altar painting.
The collection also includes expressive carved wooden figures. This crucifixion.
These figures of the Erill la Vall Descent from the Cross, from the last half of the 12th century.
A Batillo Majesty from the mid-12th century that retains much of its polychrome coloring.
More than enough reason for repeated visits. I will want to return before we leave Barcelona.