Modernisme

Modernisme is the Catalan form of Art Nouveau, the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century movement that sought a new cultural identity for Catalonia. Active roughly from the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition to the death of the poet Joan Maragall in 1911, it was centered on Barcelona at a moment of spectacular urban and industrial growth. Though part of the pan-European fin-de-siècle wave - alongside Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and the Vienna Secession - it acquired its own personality, driven by Catalan nationalism and a rejection of bourgeois values. Its main vehicle was architecture, in the hands of Antoni Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, but it embraced painting, sculpture and, crucially, the decorative crafts, which were treated as integral to the building itself.

Defining characteristics

• Sinuous, asymmetrical facades and organic curves derived from natural forms
• Polychrome ceramics and trencadís mosaic applied to curved surfaces
• Wrought-iron balconies, gates and grilles with plant-like motifs
• Stained glass, sculpture and craftwork integrated into the architecture
• Catalan Gothic and medieval references fused with modern structure
• Dynamic, sculptural massing: bone-like columns, undulating roofs

Key figures

• Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) — Architect whose organic, mosaic-clad buildings are the movement's supreme expression
• Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850-1923) — Architect of the Palau de la Música Catalana and a movement theorist
• Josep Puig i Cadafalch (1867-1956) — Architect who blended Catalan Gothic revival with Art Nouveau ornament
• Santiago Rusiñol (1861-1931) — Painter and writer who brought Symbolist mood to Modernista painting

Example works

• Palau de la Música Catalana — Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1905-1908)
• Casa Batlló — Antoni Gaudí (1904-1906)
• Park Güell — Antoni Gaudí (1900-1914)

Sources

• Modernisme - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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