Barcelona

£11.99

"Barcelona is an attempt at total history: Social, political , cultural, economic ¿ Hughes includes descriptions of buildings - and he is as good on the bony grandeur of Catalan gothic as he is on the bulbous undulations of Gaudi - analyses of poems, precise evocations of social conditions ¿ and accounts of extraordinary people ¿ His book abounds in virtuoso stylistic displays, impassioned, eloquent, delighted, angry, amused. There is an invigorating freshness and independence of judgement, an absence of clichés, an enlivening curiosity" - Patrick Taylor-Martin, Literary Review / "Robert Hughes is probably the best - and certainly the most accessible - art critic in the world ¿ in Barcelona his art-historical and his sociological talents converge in what is often a dazzling collage of Catalan peculiarities" - Frederic Raphael, Sunday Times