National Art Museum of Catalunya

Rashmi and spent 6 hours yesterday in Barcelona's art museum, which is filled with painting and sculpture from all over Europe from the 11th century A.D. until the present. I wish I could post some pictures from the museum, but unfortunately photography was not allowed.
Nonetheless, the museum was very interesting. One thing that really stuck out to me is that Spanish medieval painting was particularly gruesome. Painting after painting depicted heretics being burned at the stake, or hanged, or stabbed, or drowned, or whatever other violent end you can imagine. The paintings of the Inquisition were particularly nasty. Down the hall, the Christian saints received similar treatments. St. Stephen was a common theme; he pestered the Jews so much about not keeping the law that they stoned him to death (hence the Grateful Dead line: "whereever he goes the people all complain.") St. John the Baptists decapitation, St. Eulalia's buring at the stake, they were all there in gory detail. I wonder if these painters were aware of the irony that they depicted the martyr saints and heretics in the exact same way.
There were more pleasant parts of the museum, though. We saw Dali, Casas, Sissley, and a lot of impressive painters that I'd never heard of.
We'll have more pictures up tomorrow morning. For now, all I've got is a picture of Rashmi's sunglasses tan.