Barcelona Cathedral: Julio Nieto “Why Have They Cast me From Heaven?”
For the past week I have been on a business trip in Oslo, Norway – and – one of my favorite cities, Barcelona, Spain Catalonia and have been able to take my wife with me and show her this amazing city. After work we did quite a bit of walking in, what is my only downside to Barcelona, the heat…
We spent a couple hours walking around the Cathedral of Barcelona (Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia) and I took this photo of one of the sculptures outside the Gaudí museum there. It is a metal figure created by Julio Nieto named “¿Por qué me echaron del Cielo?” (Why have they cast me from heaven?). A huge metal skin sculpture of a fallen angel appearing to lament his fall; Sitting bento over, head in hands, with a basket of apples where the top of the skull should be. You could see the apples in the brain as if the fallen metal angel still could not stop thinking of causing (past or future?) the Fall of Man, in the Garden of Eden with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil– or it could just be that his mind is full of Forbidden Fruits… Or maybe not only did Milton give the devil all the good lines, but Julio Nieto a good sculpture as well?
There is a lot of layered imagery here, and perhaps a bit of Catholic Guilt interpreting it, but none-the-less it is a beautiful piece of artwork that I have to stop and see each visit to the city.
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