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Published: July 27th 2013
Reina Sofia Museum
A manageable place, but, like most museums, they limit photos. This is where Picasso's masterpiece is, Guernica. Not much to report today. I literally spent the entire day at 2 different museums. First the Reina Sofia, a famous Modern museum that houses Picasso's Guernica. Then walked up the street to the absolutely massive, intimidating Prado, probably the greatest house of art after the Louvre, if not the first. This place honestly seems to never end, and contains more masterpieces than I could count. They just hang from every room, one after another.
The most famous are probably Velasquez's Las Meninas, and the great collection of Goya's. But personally what I've come to appreciate about museums, especially the big ones, are the people. People watching at museums is nearly as good as the art on the walls. And what really made this so apparent today was the nature of the paintings themselves. I can imagine Picasso and Dali, and even Velasquez having the last laugh, if they were to walk through the museum today, and see their work hoisted up on the walls. It's just that the genius behind their works was their great ability to purposely refuse clear, exacting meanings. So you have all of these people, made even more comical with these ridiculous audioguides that quietly
A Blue Miro
I love Joan Miro, mainly because you just really have no idea what he's up to. You want to find meaning, but you just can't. He frustrates the viewer. Thank you Miro. Great blue background, though - seems sad. whisper little facts into your ear (Brave New World?) as you move from this point to this point to this point. It's almost as if the auidoguide would scream at you if you went rogue, telling you to get back in line, look at this painting, and let me tell you something fun and interesting about it.
I'm sorry, it's just so extremely funny and ironic. We love the Moderns because we think we understand them. But all great art, in my opinion, is great because its meaning can never be pinned down. No one is ever meant to get great art. So, what you have here, are the tourists becoming the true spectacle, taking up their nice little parts. And the great thing about Velasquez's Meninas is that it's a painting of him painting his painting. So he's looking out at us, painting us as his work. We truly become the spectacle here, the paying customers. I wonder more and more if artists actually appreciate museums. Maybe that's why you never seem to see the work of living artists in great museums... they would refuse to be gawked at and pointed over... sold to the highest bidder. Is
A Picasso
Not really an important Picasso, but it still shows you how he just destroys your sense of space and comfort. It's like he drops the image on the ground, and forces you to make sense of the pieces. The artistic equivalent to Einstein. that art?
Anyway, sorry to go off, I just find museums such fascinating places, and oddly not necessarily for the art itself. So tomorrow it's probably a good thing that I don't go to a museum, take a break, and instead day-trip out to El Escorial, a giant fortress about an hour from Madrid.
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