Pablo Picasso, “Corner at the Cloister of Sant Pau del Camp”, 1896

Artist : Pablo Picasso

Title : Corner at the Cloister of Sant Pau del Camp

Date : 1896 Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 15.5 cm x 10 cm

Location: Museu Picasso de Barcelona, Gift of Pablo Picasso, 1970

In 1970, Pablo Picasso donated a number of drawings to the Barcelona Museum named after him, including several works that seemed atypical for the master’s creative style. Picasso’s paintings captured details of the architectural decoration of the ancient Romanesque and Gothic churches of Barcelona. Among the temples that attracted the attention of the great artist are the Romanesque church of Sant Pau del Camp and the cloister of the Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St. Eulalia.

The Church of Sant Pau del Camp, located in the Raval quarter, is one of the few completely preserved monuments of Romanesque art in Barcelona. The Picasso Museum in Barcelona preserves two drawings he made in this church. The first, “Detail of the Monastery of Sant Pau del Camp,” depicts fragments of two arches of the cloister gallery. The oil sketch remained unfinished; one of the arches remained unfinished. The second drawing is a small-format oil painting on board – “Corner of the Monastery of Sant Pau del Camp” (15.5×10.1). It shows the two corner arches of the gallery and their supporting columns, topped by capitals with carved geometric and floral motifs. On the back of the painting, the artist put the date “December 1896” and specified the name “Claustros de-Sant-Pablo”.

Also in 1896, Picasso made several sketches in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. This ancient Gothic church was built in Barcelona in the 13th century. One of the artist’s surviving small-format paintings, painted in oil on board, “A Man Leaning against the Gothic Gates of the Cathedral in Barcelona” (20.5×13.6), depicts the entrance to the chapel of St. Lucia. The painting clearly shows preserved columns with capitals decorated with ornaments with geometric and floral motifs. In another painting painted the same year, “Detail of the cloister of the Barcelona Cathedral” (22.1.×13.8), Picasso depicted a Gothic gallery window, under which there is a fountain delivering water to the famous “goose pond.”

The master’s interest in this topic, which continued over a number of years, is connected, first of all, with the general atmosphere of interest in Catalan antiquities that reigned in Barcelona at that time. The non-coincidence of the appearance of these drawings in the artist’s work is also evidenced by the fact that among the surviving, later pencil sketches made by Picasso in 1899-1900, a fragment was discovered, signed by him as “Cloitre de la Cathedral”. Many researchers believe that this drawing could be part of a larger plan that remained unrealized.

This article is published on ArtAddict Galleria, where we explore the intersections of art, history, and culture. Stay tuned for more insights and discoveries!