Spain can be a heavenly place or vice versa give the impression of the most terrible place on earth, it all depends on what kind of person tells you about it. Which of these two narrators is right?
Without a doubt, Spain is a damn attractive country to travel to. After all, it is the third most visited country in the world (after the USA and France). And there are many reasons why many people want to visit Spain. The pleasant climate is one of the main reasons. Here, for almost a whole year, the hot sun will shine over your head. But after all, not everyone visits this country in order to lie on the golden beaches. More and more, tourists are beginning to be attracted by the cultural heritage of Spain. Not many people know that Spain ranks second in terms of the number of objects and buildings that are on the UNESCO lists. Only Italy is ahead.
There are a lot of palaces and castles in Spain. There are many snow-white mountains that fascinate tourists with their landscapes. And the modern architecture of Spain, today is one of the best.
National Art Museum of Catalonia
According to EDUCATIONVV, the National Art Museum of Catalonia (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya), abbreviated as MNAC, is a museum of Catalan fine arts – a museum in Spain, in Barcelona, was created in 1990 by combining the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Museum of Catalonia. The museum is housed in the National Palace (Palau Nacional), which was built for the 1929 World’s Fair. Situated on a hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, the museum was renovated for the 1992 Summer Olympics.
The museum was created in 1990 when the Catalan Museums Act reunited the collections of the former Museum of Art of Catalonia (Museu d’Art de Catalunya) (Museum of Art of Catalonia; Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art) and the Museum of Modern Art (Museum of Modern Fine Arts; 19th and 20th century art), adding also the Gabinet de Dibuixos i Gravats (Department of Drawings and Engravings), the Gabinet Numismatic de Catalunya (Department of Catalan Numismatics; coinage and medals) and the Biblioteca d’Historia de l’Art (Art History Library). In 1996 the Department of Photography was established.
The museum opened to the public in 1995 with a Romanesque art section. The Gothic art section was open by 1997, while the Renaissance, Baroque, 19th and 20th century art sections opened by 2000. The official opening of the museum in a completely reconstructed building with all the collections took place in 2004.
The original Museum of Art of Catalonia (Museu d’Art de Catalunya) was opened in 1934 in the same place as today, but was closed during the Spanish Civil War. From 1940 to 1942 the museum was reopened. By 1945, the Museum of Modern Fine Art had opened in the park of Barcelona’s Ciutadella.
The MNAC collection covers all forms of art (sculpture, painting, objets d’art, drawing, engraving, emblems, photographs and embossing), and the museum’s collection is tasked with describing the general history of Catalan art from the Romanesque period to the mid-twentieth century. The Romanesque and Gothic collection is characterized by works of art of Catalan origin, especially the Gothic Section. The Renaissance and Baroque Collections include works not only by Catalan artists and sculptors (these collections feature works by El Greco, Zurbaran, Velazquez, Cranach, Rubens and others). MNAC Art Collections, dating from the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century are mainly composed of works by Catalan artists. As a result of the Law on Museums, the collections of the three Catalan museums became Sections in the MNAC Museum. Thus, agreements were made between the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the Biblioteca Museu Victor Balaguer, the Museu Cau Ferrat, and the Museu Comarcal de la Garrotxa regarding the art objects displayed in these centers in order to achieve a better understanding of Catalan art. Apart from the fact that the museum fulfills its characteristic function of preserving the Catalan heritage in the broadest sense, The MNAC also performs a number of technical functions outside the museum realm. The museum oversees the restoration of art and maintains an advisory service that advises other centers and museums on safety, museography and prevention of art storage.
The Patrimonial Collection of the MNAC is composed mainly of both the collections and material of the MNAC Library (Biblioteca del MNAC) and the Main Archive.
In 1990, the Catalan Law on Museums reunited the collections of the old Art Museum of Catalonia (Museu d’Art de Catalunya) (Romanesque, Gothic collection, sections of the Renaissance and Baroque period) and the Museum of Modern Art (collection of works of art of the 19th – 20th centuries) under one roof, and announced the creation of the National Museum, including the Department of Drawings and Engravings, the Department of Numismatics of Catalonia (Gabinet Numismatic de Catalunya) (chasing and medals) and the Biblioteca d’Historia de l’Art (General Library of the History of Art). Later in 1996 the Department of Photography was added to the structure of the museum.
