Gaudi

...From the perspective of the twentyfirst century, Gaudi's mystery lies in his unique identity as an antimodernist modernist...

...As one would expect, the book ends with the story of Gaudi's tragic death in a streetcar accident...

...In contemporary times, there are few among us who would accord that distinction to a great painter, sculptor, or architect...

...An abundance of detail explains the "underlying currents" of Gaudi's cultural moment, but these details do not explain the mystery of the man or come to terms with the greatness of his architecture...

...In his introduction to part 2 of the Lives, he defines the purpose of history as setting "forth the underlying currents, the character of events, for from these details men learn the true government of life" and as providing "the pleasure of reading about the past as though it were the living present...

...These frustrations aside, the book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the great Catalan architect...

...While the true nature of Gaudi's religious fervor remains unknown and perhaps unexplainable, the complex power structures among the various factions of the Catholic Church and the Catalan patriots are well described and help to explain Gaudi's devotion to the Sagrada Familia...

...Donna Gustafson There is a tradition of biographies of artists that goes back at least as far as Giorgio Vasari's great Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550...

...Later, the author perceptively describes the latent eroticism of the late nineteenthcentury Catholic revival in Europe, and specifically in Barcelona, in the context of the "decadence" movement exemplified by Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, but he stops short of attributing any such feelings to Gaudi...

...Gaudi was an original and deeply individualistic modern master, but he was also a man who looked to medieval society to solve the crises that beset cultures living through the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution and the effects of global economies...

...Vasari's ideals are still pertinent...

...One example of this is the discussion of Gaudi's celibacy, which van Hensbergen attributes to the architect's rejection by one woman to whom he proposed marriage...

...We are accustomed to seeing the artist's talent in the context of personal weakness, terrible deprivation, or amorality of one kind or another—all of which help us to understand the compulsion to create that is a significant part of artistic practice...

...His work can be fairly neatly divided between secular work for an enlightened patron of the arts, Eusebi Guell, and his work on behalf of the Catholic Church...

...Donna Gustafson is director of exhibitions, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey...

...The two principles that guided his life and career were a deep Catholic faith and Catalan nationalism...

...As a fitting tribute to both the architect's work and his service to the faith, Gaudi was buried in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia...

...Commonweal 25 November 9,2001...

...In addition, the discussion of Gaudi's relationship with the immensely wealthy Giiell (whom Gaudi compared to a Medici) and the series of building projects that fell to Gaudi under Giiell's patronage is extremely enlightening, not the least for the credit that van Hensbergen gives to Giiell as a partner in Gaudi's architecture...

...First, the architect's personal and working archives were destroyed in the Spanish Civil War...

...Certainly van Hensbergen has amassed a formidable amount of research and by focusing on the writings of Gaudi's countrymen—both critics and admirers—he provides a much-needed local grounding for an architect known the world over for his innovative designs...

...We should never try to finCommonweal 24 November 9,2001 ish the Sagrada Familia, otherwise we undo the web or power that is elaborately woven into this mysterious religious spell...

...In all fairness, there are real difficulties in explaining Gaudi...

...Gijs van Hensbergen's new biography of the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926), renowned for his work in the city of Barcelona, is disappointing for just that reason...

...While van Hensbergen is to be commended for providing the first biography of the architect in English, there are confusing passages and conflicting points of view that make the book difficult to read...

...Vasari focused on biography in order to paint a picture, if you will, of the men who had distinguished themselves by the creation of their hands...

...Van Hensbergen's research provides evidence that the architect, as has been told, was hit by a streetcar and left to die after being mistaken for a tramp, but van Hensbergen also finds sympathetic onlookers who tried to help the unknown man...

...What can be drawn from statements about the Sagrada Famflia such as "The project is scheduled for completion around 2030 assuming the steady flow of donations does not dry up," or "Each time we push our way through the Sagrada Familia's turnstiles we pay for another stone to be laid and expiate another sin...

...Vasari clearly felt the necessity of attending to his contemporary and future readers...

...For Vasari, the artists of the Italian Renaissance were nothing less than heroic...

...How to reconcile all those contradictory identities in the man who built the Park Guell, one of the most beautiful and sensual city parks in the Western world, and who sacrificed the second half of his career to build Sagrada Famflia, the Church of the Holy Family, in the center of Barcelona...

...At other times, van Hensbergen's excessive enthusiasm for his subject creates confusion...

...At times the author closes off exploration of significant decisions and actions by issuing pat explanations, only to reopen the discussion a few pages later...

...he is variously described as a saint (and in fact, a group is avidly pursuing his beatification), a sinner, an egomaniac, a tyrant, and a gentle soul...

...Second, Gaudi has been mythologized...

...What has changed, however, is our view of artists...

...Inexplicably, he finds it necessary to declare that there is no evidence to suggest that Gaudi was homosexual...

...Of less importance, but of significant interest, are the remarks that the author recounts from artist contemporaries like Pablo Picasso, whose wicked sense of humor was trained on Gaudi's architecture, and the irreverent, surrealist painter, Salvador Dali, whom Gaudi would surely have been alarmed to find among his supporters...