"If we didn't have Gaudi, we wouldn't have gaudy"One of the main things to see in Barcelona are Gaudi's works/influences. I am not sure that in this city you could ever miss seeing them. He is the beloved architect-artist of this city.
When we first looked at the Gaudi's as we drove through town, I was shocked and not a bit liking of his work. It seemed so bizarre, disturbing, and truthfully~ freakish. I still think much of his work is hard to see without wrinkling your forehead, but I understand so much better now.
After a few days, a few valuable conversations about the artist, and a new park to visit...I fell in love.
It happened in Park Guell...
[Posed pictures of Mom and I, on this ribbon of wonderment ~ Barcelona behind us] I think out here in the sunshine, high above Barcelona, this artist's passionate heart was on wild display. He looked at all of these tiny little broken tiles and somehow made them whole. The trencadis tiling was incredible to behold...so much love given to every tile?
Is this his vision? His representation of God's healing our broken places? Our loving God's breaking and remaking of us ~ how beautiful humble brokenness really is to Him.
The path winds through his enchanting garden, showing off his love of nature. I think this is what did it for me ~ to see him putting God's creation on brilliant display. He was a devout lover of God and it was his devotion that drove his work (not simply madness, as I had thought!). He led an almost monastic existence, consumed by his artistic visions and was very poor. It was told to us that he sought to artistically infuse his work with nature...bringing shape and form to things that he saw and then he was driven to share.
With so many of his works to behold, I believe this is where I felt the artist's heart for the first time. This is the park...
Shadows and sun played on the colors, people from every country mingled and wondered, and in this God-fused creation, I found a new artist to love. Gaudi.
jj
