HOMAGE IN CATALONIA.

Gaudi
Gijs van Hensbergen
HarperCollins, $35, 368 pp.

There is a tradition of biographies of artists that goes back at least as far as Giorgio Vasari's great Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550. Vasari focused on biography in order to paint a picture, if you will, of the men who had distinguished themselves by the creation of their hands. Vasari clearly felt the necessity of attending to his contemporary and future readers. In his introduction to part 2 of the Lives, he defines the purpose of history as setting "forth the underlying currents, the character of events, for from these details men learn the true government of life" and as providing "the pleasure of reading about the past as though it were the living present."

Vasari's ideals are still pertinent. What has changed, however, is our view of artists. For Vasari, the artists of the Italian Renaissance were nothing less than heroic. In contemporary times, there are few among us who would accord that distinction to a great painter, sculptor, or architect. We are accustomed to seeing the artist's talent in the context of personal weakness, terrible deprivation, or amorality of one kind or another--all of which help us to understand the compulsion to create that is a significant part of artistic practice. Gijs van Hensbergen's new biography of the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926), renowned for his work in the city of Barcelona, is disappointing for just that reason. An abundance of detail explains the "underlying currents" of Gaudi's cultural moment, but these details do not explain the mystery of the man or come to terms with the greatness of his architecture.

In all fairness, there are real difficulties in explaining Gaudi. First, the architect's personal and working archives were destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. Second, Gaudi has been mythologized; he is variously described as a saint (and in fact, a group is avidly pursuing his beatification), a sinner, an egomaniac, a tyrant, and a gentle soul. How to reconcile all those contradictory identities in the man who built the Park Guell, one of the most beautiful and sensual city parks in the Western world, and who sacrificed the second half of his career to build Sagrada Familia, the Church of the Holy Family, in the center of Barcelona?

From the perspective of the twenty-first century, Gaudi's mystery lies in his unique identity as an antimodernist modernist. His work can be fairly neatly divided between secular work for an enlightened patron of the arts, Eusebi Guell, and his work on behalf of the Catholic Church. Gaudi was an original and deeply individualistic modern master, but he was also a man who looked to medieval society to solve the crises that beset cultures living through the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution and the effects of global economies. The two principles that guided his life and career were a deep Catholic faith and Catalan nationalism.

While van Hensbergen is to be commended for providing the first biography of the architect in English, there are confusing passages and conflicting points of view that make the book difficult to read. At times the author closes off exploration of significant decisions and actions by issuing pat explanations, only to reopen the discussion a few pages later. One example of this is the discussion of Gaudi's celibacy, which van Hensbergen attributes to the architect's rejection by one woman to whom he proposed marriage. Later, the author perceptively describes the latent eroticism of the late nineteenth-century Catholic revival in Europe, and specifically in Barcelona, in the context of the "decadence" movement exemplified by Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, but he stops short of attributing any such feelings to Gaudi. Inexplicably, he finds it necessary to declare that there is no evidence to suggest that Gaudi was homosexual.

At other times, van Hensbergen's excessive enthusiasm for his subject creates confusion. What can be drawn from statements about the Sagrada Familia such as "The project is scheduled for completion around 2030 assuming the steady flow of donations does not dry up," or "Each time we push our way through the Sagrada Familia's turnstiles we pay for another stone to be laid and expiate another sin. We should never try to finish the Sagrada Familia, otherwise we undo the web or power that is elaborately woven into this mysterious religious spell."

These frustrations aside, the book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the great Catalan architect. Certainly van Hensbergen has amassed a formidable amount of research and by focusing on the writings of Gaudi's countrymen--both critics and admirers--he provides a much-needed local grounding for an architect known the world over for his innovative designs. While the true nature of Gaudi's religious fervor remains unknown and perhaps unexplainable, the complex power structures among the various factions of the Catholic Church and the Catalan patriots are well described and help to explain Gaudi's devotion to the Sagrada Familia. In addition, the discussion of Gaudi's relationship with the immensely wealthy Guell (whom Gaudi compared to a Medici) and the series of building projects that fell to Gaudi under Guell's patronage is extremely enlightening, not the least for the credit that van Hensbergen gives to Guell as a partner in Gaudi's architecture. Of less importance, but of significant interest, are the remarks that the author recounts from artist contemporaries like Pablo Picasso, whose wicked sense of humor was trained on Gaudi's architecture, and the irreverent, surrealist painter, Salvador Dali, whom Gaudi would surely have been alarmed to find among his supporters.

As one would expect, the book ends with the story of Gaudi's tragic death in a streetcar accident. Van Hensbergen's research provides evidence that the architect, as has been told, was hit by a streetcar and left to die after being mistaken for a tramp, but van Hensbergen also finds sympathetic onlookers who tried to help the unknown man. As a fitting tribute to both the architect's work and his service to the faith, Gaudi was buried in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia.

Donna Gustafson is director of exhibitions, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey.