Word: catalan
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...This can do good, not because it may pump up the "self-esteem" of Hispanic schoolchildren (the purpose of history is not to make people feel better), but because it accords with a large truth shrouded, at present, in omissions and lies. Columbus himself has been presented as Castilian, Catalan, Corsican, Majorcan, Portuguese, French, English, Greek and even Armenian. He was, in fact, Italian: born in Genoa in 1451, the son of a weaver...
...what would turn out to be the emblematic radical painting of the century, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Richardson is a born storyteller, with a vivid sense of detail and character that enables him to deal with the large cast of players entangled in Picasso's early life, from obscure Catalan artists, shady French art dealers and questing Russian collectors to writers like Alfred Jarry, Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire and that redoubtable, droning narcissist, the Miss Piggy of the American expatriate avant-garde, Gertrude Stein...
...halt to construction, which has been under way in fits and starts since 1882. Continuing to work on the building, contends architect Josep Anton Acebillo, is "like adding arms to the Venus de Milo." Nonetheless, the building continues to be financed privately -- and enthusiastically -- by contributors ranging from Catalan nationalists to Japanese businessmen to American tourists...
...Barcelona seeks international celebrity in playing host to the 1992 Summer Olympics, the smoldering controversy over the Sagrada Familia has flared anew. Last summer 200 Barcelona artists and intellectuals issued statements deriding new sculptures for the church by Catalan artist Josep Maria Subirachs as "boorish" and "kitsch." Protesters circled the church in a candlelight procession. Religious objections have also arisen: traditionalists are holding monthly prayer sessions, inveighing against the stark nudity of Subirachs' Christ...
Architectural education is also a factor. "Gaudi invented a new system of architecture," says Catalan professor Joan Bassegoda. "Instead of the geometry of rectangles and circles, he took his structures from nature, studying what forms allow trees and humans to grow and stay upright." Hyperbolas, parabolas, helices and helicoids, the curving, open-ended forms Gaudi used, were calculated so precisely that computers have shown his measurements to be perfect. Today computer-driven diamond saws are cutting Gaudi-designed inclined columns to support the nave, replacing Gothic architecture's flying buttresses. "We're still learning from Gaudi's genius," says Bassegoda...