Curator: Miquel del Pozo
Alright, but with whose eyes? Those of the artist, there’s no other way
“The only true voyage, the only immersion in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees”.
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Àngel Jové Jové: Metafísica III, 1976. Varnish emulsion and adhesive velvet on photographic paper, 82.8 x 130.5 cm. Col·lecció Morera. Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Lleida.
We only have one set of eyes, our own. The universe of others –the way they see the world– is forbidden to us, like the stickers in this picture that cover their faces, that hide their looks. The entirety of existence, the whole world, we can only look at (and interpret) from within ourselves, from our own eyes. How will we look, then, with the eyes of another? How could we look, for example, through the eyes of the poet Màrius Torres –who gazes at us from the centre of this photograph– the author of the poem Uns ulls en un retaule (Eyes on an Altarpiece), who in Cançó a Mahalta (A Song to Mahalta) writes “your look already speaks”?
With art, there is no other way. ” Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon”, says Proust at the end of his novel¹. There is only one reality, the one that science tries to decipher. However, the views of that reality are infinite, as many as there are people who live (and have lived) in this world. Each view is a entire universe; each work of art, a new world to view.
[1] Marcel PROUST (1954), «Le temps retrouvé» A la recherche du temps perdu. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, pp. 256-257
Fina Miralles Nobell: Relationships. The Body’s Relationships with Natural Elements: Water. Look at the sea, March 1975. Photograph. Museu d’Art de Sabadell. © Fina Miralles Nobell
Fina Miralles Nobell: Relationships
What does Fina Miralles see when she looks at the sea? If we were to try to locate the beach and the specific place where she stood in March 1975 to take this photograph and look towards the horizon, as she does, we would not be able to see what she sees. The water changes every second, a new wave comes in to replace the previous one, but it is not this renewed eternity of the sea that prevents us from seeing what she sees. The physical point of view may be the same, but she looks from the inside and we can only approach this through her work. What she saw we have to look for in a drawing or a painting.
First the artist looks and then we see
Ramon Casas: Looking for a Subject. Madrid, ca. 1904. Graphite pencil and watercolor on paper, 12.3 x 17 cm. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, acquired from the Plandiura Collection, 1932. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
It always works like this: first the artist looks and then we see. That is the sequence. The painter goes out into the world carrying his tools –canvas, brushes, paints and palette– in search of a theme: “THE SUBJECT” of the painting. Where he stops to look (the image he paints that day) will be what we will see when we stand in front of the work.
Art is subjectivity –eyes that look (those of the artist at the world)– directed towards another subjectivity –other eyes that look (those of the spectator at the work). In this twin dialogue we compare our view with that of the artist. Let us see with our own eyes what the artist saw.
Santiago Rusiñol: Female Figure, 1894. Oil painting on canvas, 100 x 81 cm. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Legacy of Santiago Espona, 1958. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
Santiago Rusiñol: Female Figure
When we look at a work of art, we occupy the position of the artist when they created it. This is so obvious that I had to read it in a book[1] to realise it. This painting shows it: we –the painter– see ourselves reflected in the mirror as we portray the girl sitting in front of us, we are looking through the painter’s eyes. We should never forget it, it is always that way. Faced with any work of art we see what the artist saw in the final moments before they finished it, before moving away from it. We look towards where they looked: we find ourselves looking through other eyes.[1] Siri Hustvedt, Los misterios del rectángulo, p.32
Three ways of looking: those of today, yesterday and the day before yesterday
Piece of slate with an engraving depicting a young deer. From the Cave of Sant Gregori (Falset). Epipalaeolithic era (circa 9000 BC). Slate, engraving (slate, engraved with burin of flint) 7.1 x 3.6 x 0.9 cm. Museu de Reus © Photographic archive of Museu de Reus.
Almost 11,000 years ago, one of our ancestors woke up and went out hunting. At some point during the day he decided that those animals he was chasing, that came and went with the seasons and were the source of community’s survival, had to be transformed into an image. On a piece of slate he scratched the figure of a deer. What he expected from this image, we will never know, but even today, as we look this engraving, we can hear the sound of the branches cracking as the animal flees when it hears us coming.
Figure. Second half of the 5th century BC. Wheel-thrown pottery. Museu del Cau Ferrat. Santiago Rusiñol Collection – Archaeology © Arxiu Fotogràfic del Consorci del Patrimoni de Sitges.
Five centuries before the birth of Christ, one of our ancestors took a piece of clay and moulded it into a figure. They made two holes in the fresh clay for the eyes and attached two small spheres for the testicles.
In this piece of clay that person deposited their desires and aspirations. We are probably looking at some kind of ex-voto that our ancestor used to request a favour of the gods.
In this piece of clay that person deposited their desires and aspirations. We are probably looking at some kind of ex-voto that our ancestor used to request a favour of the gods.
Perejaume: Landscape of Scales, Sant Iscle de Vallalta or Hortsavinyà, 1981. Collage of confetti and watercolour on canvas, 16 x 27 cm. Fundació Palau, Caldes d’Estrac. © Perejaume, VEGAP, Barcelona
.
Not long ago, a contemporary artist stood in front of a blank canvas with a box full of confetti and a set of watercolours. He patiently glued the circular scraps/cutouts onto the canvas as if they were scales. Over them, with a series of brushstrokes, he created a landscape.We are now in front of the painting and, looking at the canvas, we will never know whether we are seeing the green of the fields and the infinite blue of the sky divided by the light of the sunset, or the gradual change in colour, from the belly to the back, of an iridescent fish. This is where the two ways of looking –the artist’s and ours– meet on the surface of the work. We cannot ask, only look. Have you ever looked closely at the colour of the scales?
Look
“But unfortunately, you don’t see what I see (…). You see me, sitting at the table in front of you”.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Anton Casamor d’Espona: Looking at the Sea, s/d. Sculpture in marble (figure) and granite (towel), 95 x 120 x 50 cm. Museu de l’Empordà.
We are (once again) faced with a girl looking at the sea. Now, however, we know neither her name nor that of the place from where she is looking. It is in this freedom to imagine a story (a life) for her that we give voice to through a poem:
Tot l’any d’espera incòmoda
per una trilogia: el mar, la sal i tu.
Llavors es fa el miracle i ve l’agost
-com va venir també l’estiu passat.
Enguany, però, la sorra se t’empassa
i és impossible fer com fan els altres:
no pots anar a cercar l’onada
i capbussar-te en l’alegria de la platja
ni vols per res del món negar que ara ja saps
que a més de sal, a l’aigua, hi suren cendres.
Tu no. Tu no vols oblidar-te de la mare.
per una trilogia: el mar, la sal i tu.
Llavors es fa el miracle i ve l’agost
-com va venir també l’estiu passat.
Enguany, però, la sorra se t’empassa
i és impossible fer com fan els altres:
no pots anar a cercar l’onada
i capbussar-te en l’alegria de la platja
ni vols per res del món negar que ara ja saps
que a més de sal, a l’aigua, hi suren cendres.
Tu no. Tu no vols oblidar-te de la mare.
The whole year of uncomfortable waiting
for a trilogy: the sea, the salt and you.
Then the miracle happens and August arrives
just like it came last summer.
This year, however, the sand swallows you up
and it is impossible to do as others do:
you can’t go looking for the wave
and immerse yourself in the joy of the beach
nor do you want for anything in the world to deny that you now know
that in addition to salt, ash floats in the water.
Not you. You don’t want to forget your mother.
Mireia Calafell, CENDRES (ASHES).
NOSALTRES, QUI. (WE WHO).
Two people standing side by side looking at the sea can see completely different, even completely opposite, things. How many seas are there in the sea?
Joaquim Mir: Enchanted cove (Mallorca), circa 1901. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
There is the Mediterranean Sea, our sea. The geographical proximity and personal biography of each of us makes us see it in a certain way.
Santiago Rusiñol: “Malavida” of Sitges, ca. 1892-1893. Acquired from the Plandiura Collection, 1932. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
There is the fisherman’s sea that begins at dawn; only those who have experienced it can talk about it. It is a sea where life is always at stake.
Joan Rabascall: Platja de Sant Pere Pescador, 1981. Museu de l’Empordà. © Joan Rabascall, VEGAP, Barcelona.
There is the sea of the tourists, who think nothing of parking their cars on the beach if no one stops them. It is a sea capable of ending all seas. Just Stop Oil.
Baldomer Galofre: Marina, 1897. Oil painting on canvas, 2000 x 105 cm. Museu de Reus. © Museu de Reus
There is the sea of the romanticist who, on the departing vessel, imagines everything that lies beyond.
Ramon Martí i Alsina: Stormy Sea, between 1875 and 1884. Oil painting on canvas, 137 × 239 cm. Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer.
There is the sea of the storm that is the force of the ancient gods that still roars on Earth. It is the life lost in the vessel that founders on the rocks.
Luís Leandro Serrano: Nudes on the Beach, second half of the 20th century. Photograph, 27 x 27 cm. Museu de Manresa.
There is the sea of childhood, that instant of pure happiness. It is a sea of memories to which (if you experienced it as a child) you can always return.
Marcel Broodthaers: Citron-Citroen (Réclame pour la Mer du Nord), 1974. Lithograph and screenprint on paper, 104.8 x 66.2 cm. MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. © Estate of Marcel Broodthaers, VEGAP, Barcelona.
There is the sea of commerce that sees income and profit in everything that moves. Capitalism and cannibalism must have the same root, even if we have forgotten it. A lemon (citron) is not a car (Citroën), even if they are called the same in Flemish.
Katsushika Hokusai: Under the Wave off Kanawaga, ca. 1832. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Former Drawings and Engravings Collection. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
There is the sea of art that no one has ever seen in the real world. It is a sea that, if you want to see it, you have to go to the museum.
Master of Cabestany: Apparition of Jesus to his Disciples at Sea. (Relief of the portal of the Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, Girona). Second third of the 12th century. Carved and drilled marble, 81 x 62 x 18 cm. Museu Frederic Marès. © Photography: Guillem F-H.
There is also the sea of faith that Peter and Andrew will never forget, the sea where they were fishing the day Jesus called them to the apostleship. It was a real sea (with fish full of scales) that became a historical sea (which we know thanks to a book) and also a symbolic sea where the fish will now be others: “from now on you will be fishers of men” (Luke 5, 10).
* From the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, where this relief was originally located, you can see the sea.
* From the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, where this relief was originally located, you can see the sea.
Josep Icart Espallargas: Untitled, 1984. Museu d’Art Modern de Tarragona. © Diputació de Tarragona. Museu d’Art Modern. Photographic archive. Alberich Fotògrafs
There is an untitled sea that must be an infinite sea, but when we look at it, it is a “diminutive infinity” that only reaches as far as we can see. Baudelaire explains it in My Heart Laid Bare: “Six or seven leagues represent the radius of infinity for man. Here is a diminutive infinite”. Infinity advances with us as we walk towards the horizon, which we will never reach, not because it is infinite, but because it walks with us, it depends on our point of view, on the physical place from which we look.
The point of view
“Seen by the Angels, the tops of the trees are perhaps
roots, that drink from the heavens;
and in the soil, the deep roots of a beech tree
seem like silent peaks”
roots, that drink from the heavens;
and in the soil, the deep roots of a beech tree
seem like silent peaks”
Rainer Maria Rilke, French Poems (V 38)
Francesc Català-Roca: Monument a Colom, 1950. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya © Arxiu històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya/Fons Francesc Català-Roca
Rilke’s doubt –the question of how angels would see a tree from heaven– illuminates this photograph. How does Christopher Columbus see the world from the top of his column? What does he see from his point of view? Above all: how does he interpret what he sees?
Ramon Casas i Carbó and Santiago Rusiñol i Prats: Portraying Each Other, summer 1890 in Sant Benet de Bages. Oil painting on canvas, 60 x 73cm. Museus de Sitges. © Arxiu Fotogràfic del Consorci del Patrimoni de Sitges.
The two artists have come out to paint together in the open air. They are very close to each other, but they are looking in different directions and, at the same time, each one is looking from within, from his artistic personality and from his life experience. Their works are two different ways of seeing.
The painting, however, offers us a third point of view, that of someone who was not there that day and who now observes it; in other words, us. To create this work, signed by both artists, first Casas painted the landscape while Rusiñol portrayed him, and then Rusiñol went to sit in the chair in the background, to paint his landscape, while Casas portrayed him. It is a painting with two signatures where each artist portrays the other. There are three canvases in the painting: one real and two painted. In total, there are three different points of view.
The painting, however, offers us a third point of view, that of someone who was not there that day and who now observes it; in other words, us. To create this work, signed by both artists, first Casas painted the landscape while Rusiñol portrayed him, and then Rusiñol went to sit in the chair in the background, to paint his landscape, while Casas portrayed him. It is a painting with two signatures where each artist portrays the other. There are three canvases in the painting: one real and two painted. In total, there are three different points of view.
Lluís Borrassà, Young Man Leaning Out of the Window, ca. 1400-1415. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Acquired 1956. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
This young man’s attention has been attracted by something happening outside the picture. He goes to the window to look and is pointing to something with his finger. What is it? We can’t see it now. The painting, now separated from its original altarpiece where we could indeed see what he is looking at, reminds us that the gaze is conditioned by the physical occupation of the space. Two people cannot observe from the same point at the same time; it is physically impossible. As long as he is there, with his head out the window, no one else can look.
Pablo Picasso: Salomé, París, summer-late 1905. Drypoint on copper stamped on Van Gelder vellum paper (third and definitive state), 40 x 34.8 cm. Fundació Palau, Caldes d’Estrac. © Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid.
Seated on his throne, Herod watches as Salomé dances for him. What he sees –the naked body of the young woman offered for his contemplation– will cause him to say ecstatically: “Ask me for whatever you wish and I will give it to you” (Mark 6: 22). She, advised by her mother, will ask for the head of John the Baptist “on a tray” (Matthew 14:8) and this is how we see it, on the maid’s lap. While Herod stares at a part of the young dancer’s body that we will never be able to see, John, with his eyes closed forever, can no longer look.
Fina Miralles: Standard, 1976/2020. 2 photographs: 60 x 40 cm each. Projection of digitalised slides, inkjet printing on paper and sound recording. MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium. Donated by the artist. © Fina Miralles.
The artist (who personifies THE WOMAN here) is bound hand and foot in a wheelchair. Gagged with a cloak, without the right to speak, she is forced to look at the screen in front of her, on which are constantly projected pictures and sounds of what “right-thinking” society considers a woman has to do: the first communion, the wedding, motherhood, the formation of a family, domestic life, and, at the same time, to be an ideal of beauty, an object of desire.It is the same bombardment of images we receive today, expanded exponentially on social media, but made explicit. She is tied up in front of the screen. The only way she can escape is by not looking. By closing her eyes.
The look that looks at us
En la cultura clàssica antiga el suïcidi consistia, sovint, en un mecanisme per a preservar honor i possessions. Amb l’expansió del cristianisme, la representació d’aquesta pràctica quedà força arraconada fins al romanticisme, quan els artistes reprendran amb força el tema i àdhuc la pràctica
(1) Apel·les Fenosa and Pablo Picasso: Tête de Dora Maar, 1941. Fundació Apel·les Fenosa. © Fenosa, VEGAP, Barcelona; Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid.
(2) Barbara Stammel: Sister I, 1997. Museu d’Art Modern de Tarragona. © Diputació de Tarragona. Museu d’Art Modern. Arxiu Fotogràfic. Alberich Fotògrafs.
(3) Josep Tapiró: Bride, circa 1876-1896. Museu de Reus. © Museu de Reus.
No matter how evocative a figure that looks at us is in a work of art, no matter how strong the feeling of being faced with a presence, we can never really know what it sees. The portrait doesn’t tell us, it doesn’t let us in; it forces us to remain permanently on the surface, on the person’s outer face, on the skin. However, we cannot help but think that there is a life on the other side of the work, a life that looks at us and that we will never be able to know. It is the impossible dialogue that portraits always offer. And, moreover, we age, unlike them.
That is precisely why it is always good to return to the museum, because we age and the works do not. Looking at a painting in adolescence is not the same as seeing it towards the end of life, nor is contemplating parenthood before we become parents or after losing a child. The museum is a place that offers us something different every time we return… because we have changed.
The look of others
(and ours)
“…I know of two deaths that approach me…
Of one I am certain, and the other threatens me.
Of one I am certain, and the other threatens me.
Neither painting nor sculpting will appease
the soul, returning to that divine love
that embraces us all on the cross.”
the soul, returning to that divine love
that embraces us all on the cross.”
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 285.
When Michelangelo wrote this sonnet he was 79 years old and saw the end of his days approaching. That is why he speaks of two deaths; he is certain of the death of the body, what threatens him is the death of the soul. His Christian and Neoplatonic concept of the world conditioned his outlook, and his firm belief in a judgment in the afterlife made him fear condemnation.
Anonymous, Christ from La Cerdanya, second half of the 12th century. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Former Museums Collection, 1972. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
The images of the cross, torn from the places of worship where they belonged and displayed inside the museum, where no one (or almost no one) kneels to pray in front of them, have lost their place in the world, they are decontextualized… Even so, you should go and look at them. You have to go to the museum and stand in front of this cross-less Christ nailed to a white wall; alone capable of invoking two millennia of faith in a single image.At the end of the poem, Michelangelo says that neither painting nor sculpting can soothe his soul and in another sonnet he comes to regret having dedicated his life to art and not to God. We must not forget, however, that it is thanks to art that God has made himself visible to men.
Anonymous, Majestat Batlló, mid-12th century. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Donated by Enric Batlló Batlló to the Barcelona Provincial Government; on loan, 1914. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
Christ on the cross has his eyes open and is fully clothed, thus symbolising his triumph over death. Previously, however, the artist had to create the image. He carved the figure of Christ in four separate pieces of wood and used two more to make the cross, all joined together with wooden stems to form the sculptural ensemble. To nail the hands to the cross, on the other hand, he used two iron nails. Can you imagine the sound of hammer blows? The symbolic charge of the gesture?
Joaquim Llucià: Christ or Crucifixion, 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 200.5 x 199.5 cm. MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. Donated by Carmen Buqueras. © Heirs of Joaquim Llucià.
To create this Christ or Crucifixion, the artist had to lie down twice on the canvas. The first time to stamp the blooded hands (red paint) at the top, and the second to leave the footprints at the bottom. And now (his) body is present forever more.
Jaume Serra, Calvary, ca. 1375-1385. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, On loan from the Generalitat de Catalunya. National Art Collection. Donated by Don Antonio Gallardo Ballart, 2015. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
Painting a tree and a bird with its young on top of the cross, the artist brought together Man, God, the Passion and the Eucharist in a single image. Baring its breast to feed its young, the pelican painted at the top of the altarpiece is a metaphor for everything depicted below. It is the nostro pellicano that Dante speaks of in his Divine Comedy (Paradise XXV,113).
Juli González: Maternity of the Child on the Cross (Maternité a l’enfant à la croix), 1941. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Donated by Roberta González, daughter of the artist, 1972; entered the collection, 1973. Photo: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; © Juli González, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2023.
Drawing a cross on the child’s body, the artist explains (wordlessly) the indescribable pain of the mother. The quintessential Christian symbol, the sign of the resurrection, tells us that the child has died.
Josep Berga i Boix: Calvary, 1889. Oil painting on canvas, 153 x 283 cm. Museu de la Garrotxa.
Here the cross is the excuse to paint the landscape. When religious painting was the only possible subject, artists and clients began to expand the framing of the sacred scene to (also) show the beauty of nature. This is how “the landscape” was born. One of our first landscape artists seems to have those images in mind.
Attributed to Martín Bernat, Processional Cross with the Bust of Christ and the Instruments of the Passion, 1477-1505. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Contribution of the Provincial Commission of Historical and Artistic Monuments of Barcelona to the Provincial Museum of Antiquities of Barcelona, 1888. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
The whole story of the Passion in one image; all the suffering and instruments of torture in one object. Even the rooster, which had to crow twice, and the dice with which the soldiers gambled away the clothes of the condemned man, are represented there. You need only to open a book (the Bible) and read the text to see how all these elements are part of the story.
Ramon Casas i Carbó: The Widow, 1889/90. Oil painting on canvas, 186 x 113 cm. Museu Víctor Balaguer. © Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer.
How many times will the widow in the picture have read (or heard) the same story? The small cross placed on the home altar, towards which she looks, supports an entire concept of the world that, for centuries and centuries, has explained human reality. The images have served (in power) to confirm it.
Doménikos Theotokópoulos (El Greco), Christ and the Cross, between 1590 and 1595. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Legacy of Santiago Espona, 1958. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2023.
We Westerners have carried the weight of the cross that Christ bears in this image on our shoulders for centuries… and even now. It is that very Christian thing of accepting present suffering in exchange for a future promise. It doesn’t matter if it is in this life or the next, we continue to live on promises.
Baldomer Gili Roig: District cross. Modern copy of the original glass negative, 13 x 18 cm. Col·lecció Morera. Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Lleida.
District crosses, as their name indicates, delimited town or village boundaries. They welcomed or bid farewell to travellers and were invariably decorated with crosses and scenes of the crucifixion. However, for a child to kneel in front of a raised stone in the shape of a cross, someone must first have explained the reason for doing so (or forced them to do it). We receive our first view of the world –the first narrative of existence– from others. We are born into an interpreted world (Rilke). Art helps us look beyond, to see what others see.
Man Ray: Miró, 1933 (?). Photograph in silver salts, 29 x 22.7 cm. MACBA Collection.
On loan from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Nacional Art Collection. © Man Ray, VEGAP, Barcelona
Without art we would never have been able to see, for example, the universe of Joan Miró –what he saw when he looked at the stars, a woman or the footprints of birds on the beach– and our world would be a little poorer for it.
The first commandment to enter a museum should be the reason that Paul Valéry gives in Tel quel, to open a book: “to enrich ourselves with what they have seen and we have not”³.
³ p.58