Creativity Antonio Gaudi. Praise master

In the film “Profession: Reporter”, the film of the largest contemporary Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, several key scenes take place in the Palais Guell and the House of Mila, built in Barcelona by the brilliant Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926).

Turning to the images of Gaudi with the help of cinema, Antonioni, like no one before him, was able to discover the complex synthetic language of the work of the Catalan master, where architecture, painting, poetry, music form a single whole.

Gaudi is the forerunner of expressionism and surrealism in painting. No wonder the exhibition of photographs of his buildings, held in Paris in 1911, attracted the attention of artists first of all. There are numerous statements by Salvador Dali, showing the influence of Gaudi on his work. The famous collage principle was developed by Gaudi on his own.

In the early 1880s, Gaudi met with Count Eusebio Guell, who became his friend and main customer. Clever, educated, with a fine artistic taste, Count Guell managed to discern in the young architect the makings of a future genius. This fellowship yielded great results: Palais Guell, Park Guell and Manor Guell became Gaudi’s best creations.

In the art of the Catalan master, the most important thing is the picturesque image of its construction, lively and dynamic. So, the basis of the Park Guell’s plan is a giant lizard, slowly crawling along the hills down to the sea. And not without reason, at the foot of the main staircase leading to the "Doric temple" - the market, a sculpture of a lizard found an shelter - an old folk Catalan image.

Since ancient times in Catalonia polychrome has been the subtlest element of architecture. Gaudi was related to this tradition, originating from the Mediterranean culture. Fifty years before Corbusier, Gaudi unites sculpture, painting and architecture. This is especially noticeable in his later creations, as, for example, in the House of Mila (1906-1910).

Until now, Barcelona has called this strange house a “quarry”. The interior of the building has no walls. They are replaced by portable screens that depict marine plants. The floor is lined with hexagonal cement slabs of pale green color with images of starfish and octopuses. The metal grill of the patios resembles coral reefs, while the iron decorations on the balconies resemble algae. On the roof of the building are visible sculptures of warriors in helmets with closed visors - pipes and ventilation ducts.

This rationalism is also characteristic of the main work of the great Catalan master — the Holy Family Cathedral in Barcelona (1883–1926).

Reskin’s idea - “Gothic is not style, but religion” - has become one of the leading creative principles of Gaudi. He perceives Gothic architecture as a kind of symphony, led by an architect-conductor, who united in one person a geometer, sociologist, urbanist, liturgist, painter, sculptor and decorator. An architectural structure, according to Gaudi, should be likened to a natural organism.

The Holy Family Cathedral resembles a forest with a myriad of branches laden with fruits, birds and animals. Gaudi also intended to use forest motifs in the interior of the cathedral. The columns looked like tree trunks. The rays of the sun, passing through them, were supposed to create an atmosphere of forest oak groves.

Gaudi’s romanticism affirms the unity of all that exists, the unity of the world, the inner interconnection of all the principles of life - material and spiritual.

“The Holy Family Cathedral is not finished,” wrote Salvador Dali, “just as some Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque cathedrals are not finished.”