What is Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar and where does it come from?
Santa Maria del Mar was built between 1329 and 1383 — just 55 years, an unprecedented speed for a Gothic church. It was paid by the port unloaders and the sailors from the Ribera neighborhood — humble people. It was popularized by the novel by Ildefonso Falcones The Cathedral of the Sea (2006), later TV series. The basilica is the crowning work of Catalan Gothic: a single nave (not three like classical cathedrals), extremely thin columns, almost total absence of ornament. One of the few churches in the world where the architecture speaks for itself without images to distract it.
Why go — and what's the purpose of your appointment with the artist?
Santa Maria del Mar teaches what is pure structural elegance. The columns of the nave are so thin that it seems impossible for them to support the weight of the roof. The Mediterranean light enters through the stained glass windows of the XIV-XV and draws patterns that move throughout the day. It is a master class, in stone, on what it means to remove all that is superfluous.
How to take advantage of it (concrete practice)
Enter first thing in the morning — 9:30 — when the light falls obliquely and the stained glass windows project colors on the floor. Sit on one of the benches in the ship. Stay twenty minutes in silence. Take out the notebook. Write down three things that are in excess in your life that you could eliminate. The appointment with the artist in Santa Maria del Mar is, paradoxically, an appointment with the question 'what's left over?'.
- Address
- Plaça de Santa Maria 1, El Born, Barcelona
- Phone
- +34 933 10 23 90
- Web
- santamariadelmarbarcelona.org
- Free admission
- Yes, free until 1:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. on weekdays
Why this place connects with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way
The practice of the appointment with the artist that Julia Cameron prescribes in The Artist's Path has a principle: creativity needs to be fed before I can produce. Cameron calls it 'filling the well.' The metaphor is exact: if it doesn't rain, the well runs dry. If you don't expose your brain to non-work stimuli once a week, your ability to generate new ideas quietly declines, week by week.
Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar is an ideal place for a date with the artist because it meets the three conditions that Cameron asks for: It takes you out of your routine (a place other than your work and home), does not require production (you are going to receive, not create), and exposes you to curated stimuli (someone with judgment decided this was worth watching). Three conditions, an hour or two, once a week. It is probably the practice with the best mental ROI that you are going to add to your routine.
If you haven't taken the course yet, this is the place to start. Your Artist's Path is the free 12-week program that applies Julia Cameron's method to your life — including two hours a week blocked off on your calendar for appointments like this. More about the course at the end of the post.
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