EXHAUSTIVE MUSEUM CRAWL

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This morning, Easter Sunday, I met Sean at the Guzman al Bueno metro stop and we took the metro down to Banco de Espana to walk along the Paseo del Prado, including the Plaza de Cibeles. We went just at opening to the Prado museum, which houses around 3,000 canvases, mostly Spanish and European, and has an extensive collection of paintings by El Greco, Francisco de Goya, Diego Velazquez, Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Durer, Titian and Raphael, among others. The most prominent artists are the ones listed. The Goya works I enjoyed the most were The Second of May, 1808 and The Third of May, 1808, El Aquelarre and Saturno, among others and the Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights was absolutely amazing in person. I also loved seeing Ruben’s Las Tres Gracias (The Three Graces) in the flesh and Diana y sus Ninfas sorpendidas por Satiros (Diana and Her Nymphs discovered by a Satyr). The amount of paintings in the collection that I was familiar with because of their huge historical significance to art, was staggering. Every room housed one or more paintings that are so important to the history of art. It was fantastic, but it didn’t stop there. No, it didn’t…!!

After walking around the Real Jardin Botanico (Royal Botanical Gardens) with almost 30,000 species of plants from around the world, we made our way to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, another art museum across from the Estacion Atocha, but much different in content. The MNCARS is mostly contemporary art collections from the 19th century through modern art. The two most crowd-drawing artists housed in MNCARS of Dali and Picasso. Some of the greatest paintings by Dali I saw in the MNCARS are Invisible Man (1930), El Angelus Arquitectonico de Millet, El Engima de Hitler (1939), Atomica Melancolica, El Enigma Sin Fin, and Muchacha en la Ventana (1925). My favorite Picasso’s were El Pintor y la Modelo (1963), la Nadadora (1934), la Guernica, Desnudo en el Jardin, and Figuras al Borde del Mar. There were also paintings by Juan Gris, Georges Braque, Guiterrez Solana, and Anglada-Camarasa. The most amazing painting at the MNCARS is la Guernica by Picasso. It is absolutely amazing in person and absolutely monstrous in size. The colors, though monotone grays, are so brilliant and the shapes and designs are fabulous. This was an amazing experience, standing so close to a physically and historically significant work of art. Absorbing Picasso’s La Guernica was one of my favorite experiences in Spain by far. It was incredible. We walked over to the Museo Arqueologico Nacional and briefly toured the collection of Roman, Egyptian and prehistoric artifacts. We went for lunch nearby and headed to Ventas for our final cultural event: a Spanish bullfight, corrida de toros.

Although I unquestionably abhor the idea of brutally slaying and torturing an innocent creature for our entertainment, I felt some crazy desire to witness it just once and understand what I hate so much and why I hate it so much. My conclusion: although it was artistically (in the loosest meaning of the word) and culturally notable, it was one of the most gruesome, disgusting, vile and worthless things I have ever seen. Watching the finale where the bull is stabbed through the spine with a sword, twirled around, repeatedly stabbed in the head with a small knife and then dragged away by three mules was excruciating. One bull gushed gallons upon gallons of blood from his mouth and nose before flinching and dying (I had to flag down a vendor with Mahou after that one), however another was lucky enough to break a horn and be escorted out by an entourage of speckled cows. I would never ever go again, but as a part of the Spanish experience I do not regret going to see what exactly I’m repulsed by. I’m not sure why I stayed for the whole thing, but I would not go again. By the end of this long, culturally exhaustive day I was definitely depleted and happy to rest up before the day trip to Toledo on Monday, 17 April.

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