On 14 April, the late Pope Francis declared the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí a Venerable Servant of God, recognising his heroic virtues. In doing so, he honoured a mightily talented creative spirit and much revered eccentric.
Gaudí, who died a century ago, blended natural imagery and piety with extreme gusto, most unforgettably in the looming, asparagus-like towers of Sagrada Família in Barcelona. He absorbed stylistic precedents through descriptions of East Asian art by Walter Pater, John Ruskin and William Morris, as well as Islamic art – especially the Alhambra, the palace-fortress in Granada – as studied by the architect Owen Jones.
