Saturday, April 23, 2011

Museum Day in Madrid

On Wednesday, we spent five hours in the Prado Museum enjoying thousands of beautiful paintings.  There are works by Rubens, Goya, Velazquez and Titian here.  With over 3000 paintings, the Prado is considered by a lot of people in the art world as the premier museum for paintings.  It sure was impressive!  Again, we were not allowed to take photos of the art, even without a flash.  Very disappointing...

After the Prado, we went to the Reina Sofia where we had the chance to see modern Spanish art by Picasso and Salvador Dali.  Picasso's most famous painting, "Guernica", is on display at the Reina Sofia.  This painting is Picasso's interpretation of the horror of the bombing of the Basque town, Guernica, on April 27, 1937.  Franco, Spain's dictator at the time, gave Hitler permission to bomb his own people for "practice"!  Picasso was in Paris at the time and started to paint this masterpiece immediately.  He vowed to never return to Spain as long as Franco was in power.  Unfortunately, Picasso died in 1973 and Franco lived another two years.  "Guernica" was on display at the MOMA in New York for many years for safekeeping.  After Franco died, the painting was brought to Madrid where it has been since.

Wednesday evening, we went to a Flamenco show which was a lot of fun.  But, unfortunately, no photos allowed in there either!  :-(

Madrid
Paseo del Prado
Prado Museum
Statue of Goya outside the Prado Museum
Prado Museum
Prado Museum
Statue of Velazquez outside the Prado Museum

Prado Museum
Velazquez

Paseo del Prado
Paseo del Prado
Paseo del Prado
Reina Sofia Museum
Reina Sofia Museum
Plaza in front of the Reina Sofia Museum
Plaza in front of the Reina Sofia Museum
"BULL"
Picasso's "Guernica"
Salvador Dali's "The Great Masturbator"
More sangria and cerveza...
Hotel Europa
Smooching my Pop!
  


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