situation subject to periodic change so too was support for Catalan autonomy, and the freedom to celebrate its values. In any case over the course of his life he shied away from direct political action. In 1907, when the political party Solidaritat Catalana was attracting great support, pressure was put on the architect to contribute to the political sphere. At that time he was working on his last great domestic project, the Casa Milà. He refused to be distracted from his work. For Gaudí, politics were understood in a broad cultural sense and intimately related with his architecture.
Furthermore, during this period which witnessed the development of revolutionary political movements, Gaudí maintained a conservative position. He was certainly no advocate of violence. The mixture of his nationalist sentiment, conservative concern for tradition, and religious views produced a paternalistic view of society. He frequently asserted his respect and commitment to the working classes, but believed that it was the duty of the employers and Church to assure decent working and living conditions and social order based on Christian morality. Perspectives of Gaudí’s views of society are best judged from the different buildings he designed for the wealthy patrons and their workers, the church authorities and their congregation. The year after Gaudí qualified as an architect he joined a more peaceful organisation devoted to the Catalonia’s cultural traditions. This was the Associació Catalinista d’Excursiones Científicas. The aims of the organisation, established in 1876, were broad. As the name suggests, its central activity was visiting the countryside and sites of cultural interest. It is a good example of the nineteenth-century belief in a healthy body and a healthy mind, as well as the middle-class suspicion that city life could have harmful effects on one’s moral condition. Walking in the countryside and visiting sites of historical interest with like-minded male companions was the solution to the latter. The association also had a clubhouse in the centre of Barcelona with a library, which was the venue for lectures on the diversity of Catalonia’s culture as well as aspects of its economy. Both were important factors in Catalonia’s claim for independence. On the day of St George, the patron saint of Barcelona, the clubhouse was the focus of patriotic celebrations.
Gaudí’s first ‘excursion’ with the association was to Barcelona’s cathedral, not too exhausting a journey by foot! Subsequent visits went further afield. In different ways Gaudí’s participation in this organisation contributed to his architecture. The most obvious connection is through all the visits made to look at and study buildings. However, rather than planning new buildings, the concern that motivated many of these visits was to restore forgotten or crumbling monuments. After some visits reports were sent to government officials to encourage restoration projects to be undertaken. So in many ways the association continued the idealistic vision of Gaudí and his childhood companions at Poblet. Later in his life Gaudí would take on the huge restoration project of Mallorca cathedral. Today, Gaudí’s work is very much identified as an image of Barcelona, in his own lifetime he strove to develop an architecture that drew on and revived the traditions of his homeland. The excursions to buildings must have been accompanied by reflection on the architectural traditions of the region. Without doubt, study of Catalan heritage was focused through his architectural studies, but it would seem probable that the zealous and idealistic visits of the association offered a further creative impulse. Furthermore, other architects were also members, such as Domènech about whom more will be said in the following chapter. Besides making contact with his peers, the association also provided the opportunity for Gaudí to develop his friendship with Esuebio Güell, who was also a member. The fact that architects and their patrons came together in the association reveals the range of people it attracted and signals that it was an important space for the generation of cultural projects.
Gaudí’s activities with this association, as well as a similar group, the Associació d’Excursiones Catalana, were limited by his work, which after the mid 1880s curtailed his involvement. Yet Gaudí remained in touch with the political and cultural debates generated by Catalan society through his friends, patrons and the other seminal dimension to Gaudí the man, which was his religious belief. Catalan nationalism took various guises reflecting the political spectrum. Gaudí sided with the conservative wing and as a result the traditions of the Church, such as the devotion to Catalan saints, were an important focus for him.
14. Tower of Bellesguard, Rooftop walkway.
15. Casa Botines, Saint George.
16. Tower of Bellesguard, Bench detail (the fish with four bars represent the former naval powers of Catalonia).
Religion and Spirituality
Working on the Sagrada Familia, which would become his crowning achievement in the field of ecclesiastical architecture, despite remaining unfinished, Gaudí came into contact with another association, the Associación Espiritual de Devotos de San José. The formation of these voluntary organisations with a pedagogical or social remit was a Europe-wide phenomenon. The association was led by José María Bocabella Verdaguer, whose meditations at the mountain church of Montserrat guided him to found the association. Publishing religious propaganda was a central activity of the association in its drive to defend traditional Catholic values against atheism, socialist and anarchist political ideas, and the immorality that accompanied the rapid growth of Barcelona as well as other European cities.
Gaudí’s connection to Bocabella will be discussed in more detail later, but it would be wrong to identify Gaudí solely with this religious group, which was only one part of a greater movement to revive the faith and status of the Catholic Church in the modern world.
Furthermore, Gaudí’s religious beliefs are more complex. They may be traced back to his traditional upbringing and, Van Hensenbergen has also argued, that his religious belief, as well as that of many of his intellectual peers, was coloured by a perceived connection between spirituality and aesthetic pleasure and sensation. The Catholic Church has always recognised the role of the visual and literary arts, and shown its dexterity to incorporate, as well as guide, changes in style and expression. Following Van Hensenbergen’s thesis it may be argued that Gaudí’s work marks a significant chapter in developing a modern aesthetic for the Catholic Church. Yet it is important to note that his vision was as much if not more of the Gothic world as the modern.
Gaudí’s religiosity signals his distance from concepts of modernity. The historian Cirlot records the following definition of art by Gaudí:
“Art is something so elevated that it has to be accompanied by pain or misery to provide a counterweight in man; if not, it would deny any equilibrium.”
The status Gaudí gives to art identifies his thinking as modernist yet that it should be balanced by pain or misery suggests that his philosophy of art is framed by Catholic doctrine and its emphasis on original sin. The dialectic he evokes does imply an existential dimension to his work, yet Gaudí always sought to elevate the beholder beyond the trappings of existence to the spiritual world. Such concerns underpin his reworking of the Gothic style, which was radical in many ways, but was also shaped by a concern to sustain the traditions – both architectural and metaphysical – of the medieval period. Another example of the religious dimensions of Gaudí’s thinking is his opinion, frequently cited, that “beauty is the radiance of truth.” A theological truth is implied here. Without doubt this view of the past was ‘rose-tinted’.
Gaudí was not alone in this vision of an ideal medieval society. In Britain Ruskin and William Morris looked to the medieval era for ideals of both artistic work and social organisation which would result in a moral and harmonious society.
17. Ricardo Opisso, 1901. Gaudí working in workshop of Sagrada Familia.
18.
