Barcelona’s National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) has unveiled a breathtaking architectural intervention, “Crown of Eyes”, conceived by acclaimed local studio Anna & Eugeni Bach. This ethereal installation, suspended high within the museum’s grand Oval Hall, serves as a poetic homage to Francesc d’Assís Galí (1880–1965), the visionary artist behind the iconic murals adorning the dome of the Palau Nacional. Commissioned for a major retrospective celebrating Galí’s multifaceted legacy, the piece translates his profound pedagogical philosophy into tangible, immersive form.
Galí, a towering figure of Catalan Noucentisme, was not only a master painter, muralist, and illustrator but also a revolutionary educator. His Barcelona art school nurtured legends like Joan Miró and Llorens Artigas. A core tenet of his teaching involved sensory immersion in nature. He famously instructed students to venture into landscapes like Montseny Mountain “armed only with a crown of eyes on their heads,” urging intense observation and distillation of the world’s essence before artistic creation. Anna & Eugeni Bach have materialized this evocative metaphor with striking clarity and symbolic depth.
Soaring six metres above the museum floor, the “Crown of Eyes” installation manifests as a vast, twelve-metre diameter ring. Its seemingly fragile suspension deliberately echoes the precarious wooden scaffold upon which Galí laboured for over half a year, thirty metres high, to paint the Palau Nacional‘s monumental dome murals – allegories of Fine Arts, Science, Religion, and the Earth. Sixteen intricate medallions, representing watchful eyes, punctuate the ring’s circumference. This number is a direct architectural reference to the sixteen majestic columns anchoring the Oval Hall, the very structure supporting Galí’s painted ceiling above.
Rendered in a profound celestial blue, the entire structure resonates with the hues found at the zenith of Galí’s dome masterpiece. This chromatic choice creates a visual dialogue across space and time, linking the contemporary intervention with the historical artwork overhead. The deep blue further enhances the crown’s illusion of weightlessness, making it appear as a fragment of sky captured within the museum’s classical interior. Visitors gazing upwards experience a powerful sense of connection to Galí’s physical endeavour and his emphasis on elevated perspective – both literal and metaphorical.
More than mere decoration, Anna & Eugeni Bach’s creation is a profound act of architectural storytelling. It honours Galí’s artistic genius and his significant, often overlooked, role in shaping modern Catalan art. The “Crown of Eyes” stands as a potent reminder of his belief in pure observation as the foundation of creativity. It invites today’s audiences to pause, look deeply, and engage with the world – and with Galí’s enduring legacy – through a renewed lens. This art installation enriches the MNAC exhibition, offering a spatially resonant tribute that bridges pedagogy, history, and contemporary design within the heart of Barcelona‘s cultural heritage.