That two universal geniuses like Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso were inspired and created part of their work in two towns like Mont-roig del Camp, between the beach and the mountains of the Costa Daurada, and Horta de Sant Joan, in an amazing enclave of the Els Ports Natural Park, is a blessing for Southern Catalonia, far from the big museums. A quality cultural tourist claim that has been exploited, but still has a long way to go. It is still a little-known legacy.
That two immortal painters were moved during prolonged stays, linked to the rural landscape where they lived and were happy, supposes the squaring of the circle. It is a privilege to be able to visit Mas Miró, the summer resort of the Barcelona painter, and tour the rooms where he lived and created. It is also contemplating the mountain of Santa Bàrbara in Horta or the historic town, both of cubist forms.
It was not coincidence. These are two very powerful natural environments. “What did this territory have to transform these geniuses the way it did? It is a tourist attraction and an invitation to reflection”, points out Jaume Salvat, tourism and culture consultant for the Eurecat technology center and professor at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV).
The visitor is overwhelmed by getting lost in the natural environment of Mont-roig and seeing its reddish stone mountains, crowned by the hermitage of the Mare de Déu de la Roca that so impressed Miró. Legacy and source of pride for a territory that does not have too much self-esteem, the relationship of the two geniuses with Mont-roig and Horta has been a collective project to promote tourism and a unique route for 12 years: (www.elpaisatgedelsgenis.cat)
Landscape and art have borne fruit in an equation that adds the efforts of the public and private sectors. “It is the will of a territory to show itself and the desire of the tourist to discover. Landscapes are not just a natural element, they are territory and culture”, adds Salvat.
“We are happy, the dramatized visits are filling up”, exemplifies Elena Juncosa, director of the Fundació Mas Miró in Mont-roig del Camp. The quantitative reference, the annual visits of an amazing route, with its museums and unique spaces, exterior and interior. It connects, in addition to Miró (Mont-roig) and Picasso (Horta), Gaudí (Reus) and Pau Casals (El Vendrell). In 2022, more than 63,000 total visits were exceeded.
“It goes beyond the figures, it adds value, distinction and prestige to the tourist destination, which is much more difficult to quantify”, reflects Salvat.
At the Fundació Mas Miró they go out of their way to disseminate the legacy of his genius in Mont-roig, with a powerful and coherent discourse linked to the territory that transformed the painter. “All my work is conceived in Mont-roig”, said Miró. "The relationship with Mont-roig is fundamental, we work to open a discourse with several threads, so that the visitor can move around the territory," reasons Juncosa.
There is room to grow, although in this rural context the masses are not sought. Quality over quantity. The challenge is to attract tourists from the Costa Daurada and Barcelona, with museums and a target audience in love with Miró and Picasso, wanting to know more about their lives and their sources of inspiration.
The majority visitor profile is that of a Catalan tourist and from other Spanish communities. A part of those who buy a ticket to access Mas Miró, 30% of the total, are also foreign tourists, the majority French. The months of July and August concentrate international visits.
The type of visitor is similar at the Center Picasso d'Horta, in his case, moreover, with a surprising number of Dutch. Handicap: distance and communication in Terra Alta. They do not have original work, but they exhibit reproductions of almost all the work that Picasso created in Horta: the originals are exhibited in 11 different countries (26 museums).
"The visitor is very surprised by the amount of work that Picasso did in his two stays in Horta, in 1898-99 and 1909, by the importance it had for his work", highlights Elias Gaston, president of the Center Picasso d'Horta. “During his first stay, he was closely linked to the landscape of Els Ports: he retired to paint, lived in the wild with a great friend, and what he said about everything I know I learned in Horta emerged. Here he discovered that he was a genius ”.
On his second stay, ten years later, he was pictorially attracted by the Santa Bàrbara mountain. He also painted three works linked to the urban landscape of Horta, when he was experimenting with geometric cubism. “It is a cubist town, the Santa Bàrbara mountain also has a cubist shape”, adds Gaston. Painters have come to settle temporarily in Horta to create, as in the case of Mel Ramos, a world reference in Pop Art.
The Center Picasso d'Horta, which is basically self-financing with visits, managed to attract 6,363 people last year, a not insignificant figure for a town of 1,100 inhabitants in Terra Alta, a region dedicated to rural tourism and agriculture. “We would like to have more visitors, but we are in the south of Catalonia, far from Barcelona, with access that is neither quick nor easy. But we are happy, today 80 people have passed ”, explained Gaston last Friday.
“Yes, we would like to grow, but not at any price, we are a small town dedicated to quality tourism that is not for the masses”, highlights Marta Prat, Councilor for Culture. “We value the landscape through the figure of Picasso”. The Horta City Council, with few resources, gives up the space that houses the Center Picasso, because it knows that it is a boost for tourism, one of the most important economic activities.
The involvement of public administrations is key to sustain and grow. "Necesitamos ayudas", notes Juncosa. The Mas Miró Foundation is a private non-profit organization, like the Picasso Center in Horta, which adds to the involvement of the heirs, the Miró Foundation and the participation of the Mont-roig City Council and the Secretariat of State of Tourism.
Mas Miró has a third phase of the rehabilitation project on the table, still without a calendar or budget. Some works that include an intervention on the façade of the farmer's house, painted in the painting of La Masía (1921). They also want to gain space, scarce.
The Center Picasso de Horta, which is managed with private capital and opens from Tuesday to Sunday in summer, but only on weekends in winter, asks for the complicity of the administrations. “The economic situation is problematic. We would like to have a new premises and be able to exhibit some original work temporarily, especially the cubist ones linked to Horta”, highlights Gaston. They dream, as Picasso did.
