Marès Syndrome

Should you ever find yourself in Barcelona on a hot, humid day, I suggest you make your way through the impossibly crowded Gothic Quarter to the cathedral (the real one, that is, the one with geese in the cloisters, not Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which is a grotesque waste of time, space, and money) and nearby, around to one side, you will find a blissfully peaceful little square enclosed by ancient walls, one of those perfect places where you can sit, recover from the heat, and – if you're so inclined – daydream a little while eating an empanada for lunch. There are benches, a couple of trees, and a small fountain (turned off in this year of drought, like most Barcelona fountains, but which can only add to the magic of the place when active). The few people that do find their way there mainly pass through quietly, sensing they have entered a special space, an enclave of quiet contemplation, where some bearded bloke happens to be sitting in the shade, brushing crumbs off his shirt.

But the real reason to go there is that on one side of the tiny square is the entrance to the Museu Frederic Marès, which is probably one of the most extraordinary museums I have ever visited, and I've been in quite a few, ranging in size and eccentricity from the tiny Shell Museum in North Norfolk to the vast Hermitage in St. Petersburg (see the post Hermitageous). Generously – but also compassionately, and responsibly – if you buy a ticket to the Marès museum you also get a free return visit. Why so? Let me explain.

In recent years, a genre of TV has become established in which, in its mild version, some smug guru of minimalist living "declutters" the perfectly normal house of a perfectly normal family. In its other, more hardcore version, the impenetrably congested rooms of a compulsive hoarder are excavated, examined, and sanitised by a specialist crew. The difference being that, in the first case, the mental disorder belongs to the minimalist guru, and in the second to the hoarder. Either way, "too much stuff" is portrayed as a problem in need of a solution. There is, however, a third way, which is to be wealthy enough and sufficiently systematic (not to say piratical) in one's obsessive gathering together of stuff for it to be designated an important collection, and indeed ultimately a public service, when gifted to the nation. Examples abound: virtually all of our major museums and galleries began life as someone's private compulsion. Elias Ashmole, Hans Sloane, Solomon Guggenheim, Charles Saatchi... The list is long and distinguished, but all such "collectors" are touched with the neurosis that in humbler circumstances would lead to complaints from neighbours about vermin, strange smells, and fire hazards.

Now, as someone who has accumulated more books than is normal or necessary, I am not really in any position to point the finger, but I think it is beyond dispute that Frederic Marès was more obsessive in his collecting than most. Not content with getting hold of a few of the best examples of, say, carved statuettes of "Mother of God and Child" to be found in old Catalan village churches, he had to have them all, or at least as many as the locals (or more likely their priest) were willing to let go, which they/he seem to have been strangely willing to do, for a price. As a result, in the Marès museum there must be a hundred or so of the things, all executed to a standard specification but varying tremendously in quality from the sublime to the hilarious.

But that's just the first few rooms of the museum. Marès, it quickly becomes clear, had to collect everything of anything he could lay his hands on. At every turn in this museum there is a yet another assemblage of not-quite-identical objects, ranging from the curious – decorative fans, say, or tobacco paraphernalia – to the awe-inspiring, such as entire walls, lintels, and columns of romanesque carving removed from those same remote village churches. It is like visiting a normal museum turned inside out, with the storerooms of less than A-list, museum-grade specimens – kept for comparative, typological purposes only – all laid out on display.

It is all incredibly absorbing, but also exhausting. By the time you've explored a couple of the five floors of displays, it begins to feel like wandering through the physical manifestation of an obsessive-compulsive mind. Which is, I suppose, precisely what it is. There are not just one or two nineteenth-century cardboard theatres and sheets of cut-out characters to admire, but dozens of them; not just a select few decorative cosmetic bottles, but an entire room full of them. You like playing cards, or tarot cards? We've got racks and racks of 'em! Broadsheet ballads? Photographic cartes de visite? Ditto!

I cannot believe anyone completes the entire museum in one visit: hence the "buy one, get one free" entry tickets. It's an act of mercy. Amusingly, the attendants are constantly solicitous, particularly of us visibly older folk: "Are you OK? You don't have to do another floor, you can always come back! There is rather a lot to see, isn't there?" Perhaps visitors frequently fall victim to "Marès Syndrome", like a hyper-concentrated version of Stendhal Syndrome. What, surely not even more erotic cigarette cards? And, yikes, now a room full of creepy dolls?? It's too overwhelming... Help!

In the end we did bail out after two and a half floors, but the experience was sufficiently compelling that we did take advantage of the free second visit, just to see what might be on display in the upper floors (no real surprises there: yet more curious stuff, wholesale and in bulk, systematically arranged; I particularly enjoyed the hundreds of decorative cigar bands and matchbox tops). But situated at the very top of the museum is a small collection of Marès' own work, which – after enjoying such an eccentric bric-a-bracathon – was rather disappointingly conventional, I have to say. Best known as a sculptor, I think I was expecting him to have produced something vaguely Gaudi-esque, or maybe even as agreeably bonkers as a Kurt Schwitters Merz assemblage. Instead, there was a collection of the sort of dull, sub-classical sculptures and busts that would definitely not have been tossed onto any fascist bonfire of "degenerate art". Even allowing for the fact that Franco's regime was then at its dreary peak, it is hard to believe, for example, that this rather camp portrayal of Goya was made in 1959, not 1859:

Full-size model for bronze statue in Plaza del Pilar, Zaragoza

But, look, in another museum in another part of the city (the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), how about this stone bust of Pablo Picasso by Pablo Gargallo, made in 1913? Now that surely is agreeably bonkers, isn't it? I wonder what Pablo P. made of it? Isn't his fringe usually on the other side?

And – who knows? – perhaps it was inspired by something like this wonderful thing in the Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món, which is just down the alleyway from the Museu Picasso, as it happens:

But really, I hear you ask, exactly how many museums and galleries can a person visit in one week and stay sane? Easy: in such blazing hot, stickily humid weather, as many as possible... Besides, after so many museums over so many years, I've developed complete immunity to Marès Syndrome.

Civil War posters at MNAC

Plaça del Canonge Colom

(nice shady spot for a coffee)