Painting
19 th c. Art Gallery
The Picture Gallery holds a large part of the fundamental collection of paintings. The space recreates the original atmosphere of the rooms of the time of fine arts, with tall ceilings, velvet walls and an abundance of paintings on the walls.
On the walls there are paintings that belonged to the founder of the museum, Don Víctor Balaguer, as well as paintings donated by contemporary artists later on.
Amongst the artist represented the following stand out, Marià Fortuna, Ramon Marti Alsina, Joaquim Vavreda, Joaquin Sorolla, Modets Urgell, Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol.
Represented are also the most significant artistic styles of the time: Romanticism, Realism and symbolism.
The main genres used are Paisajimo, portraits and anecdotal paintings, which correspond to the taste of the bourgeoisie of the time.
Prado room
The Library Museum Víctor Balaguer was inaugurated in the year 1884 exhibiting not only the founders own personal collection of art but also a significant collection of baroc art given as a deposit by the Prado Museum, with paintings by El Greco, Ribera and Rubens. Balaguer equipped this `particular cultural project of the highest calibre possible at the time. This deposit is one of the oldest known Prado deposits.
In this collection of baroc art exhibited in the museum there are different artistic schools represented the Catalonian and the Andalusian, and, to a lesser extent, the Flemish and Italian schools. The paintings are distributed in four different thematic sections, religious paintings, noble portraiture, myths and allegories and nature, which include dead nature. This section of the museum offers a complete look at the art of the XVII and XVIII centuries which is a very, as you will see, dynamic, expressive, emphatic and complex art, with a play on light, chiaroscuro, tenebrous, sophisticated compositions and rich tones.
Modern Art
In the rooms found on the second level you will find represented the first artistic movements that took place in the end of the XIX and first half of the XX century. Modernism, Postmodernism and Noucentisme. Theses are works of art in a, small format, pertaining to the principle artist of the time such as Santiago Rusiñol Ramon Casaas, Anglada Camarasa, Joaquim Mir, Isidro Novell, Francesc Domingo, or Xavier Nogues, amongst others. The Catalonian artist would go to Paris, a cosmopolitan city cradle of modernity, and would come back with new horizons. The light, the atmosphere, the volume, the fugacity of the instant vibration of colour. Contrary to all of these nuances novecentisme goes back to the classic canons with a placid mediteranims with soft tones. In total there are some 150 paintings and engravings, that arrived at the institution in 1956, which is the name the collection was given.
Related to local history, there is a room with paintings that ounce belonged to the Café Foment that now form part of a small apartment with works pertaining to the school of Villanova.
Contemporary Art
Of all the paintings in this part of the museum the most impressive would have to be the ones belonging to the informalist movement, which are shown in different tendencies and style through there respective artists. There are works by Joan Tartas, Joseph Guinvovart, Joan Hernández Pijoan, Albert Ráfols Casamada Antonio Saura… and sculptures like Angel Ferrant, Andreu Alfaro…
For the most part the works of the contemporary collection come from the collection that ounce belonged to the first Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona, founded in 1959, which was moved to the Library Museum four years after its closure. This avoided the dispersion of this important collection, considered to be the most complete collection of imformalist art in Catalonia.
