Museums and More

I started off the day by checking out of my hotel in Valencia, heading to the train station, and making my way back to Madrid.  After dropping my duffel bag off at the same hotel I had checked out of on Day 3, I was ready to start off a day that was to feature 3 museums.  It didn’t turn out exactly that way.  It’s possible it made the day even better.

Lázaro Galdiano Museum

The 1st museum of the day was the Lázaro Galdiano Museum.  The Lázaro Galdiano Museum is the type of museum I like to call a bite-sized museum.  It’s fairly small, so you can get through it quickly (which is important when you’re on a strict sightseeing schedule), but it has a lot worth seeing.

The museum is housed in the former residence of its namesake, José Lázaro Galdiano, Spanish financier and art collector.  José left his art collection to the Spanish State when he died in 1947.  The collection holds works from prehistoric times (like the bronze ewer above) to the 19th century.  José had no interest in modern art.

Up until this day, El Greco had always been my favorite Spanish artist.  By the end of the day, I wasn’t so sure.

What did I just say about not being sure by the end of the day that El Greco was still my favorite Spanish artist?  It was with The Witches’ Sabbath that Goya began to challenge El Greco for the title.

The Witches’ Sabbath, The Incantation, and 4 other similarly themed 1797-98 paintings by Goya were commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Osuna.  The duchess was a prominent member of the Spanish Age of Enlightenment.  The paintings of witches, all female, were a subtle criticism of witch hunts conducted by the Spanish Inquisition.

Later in the day, I saw Bosch’s most famous work.  But for now…

Paseo del Prado

You will recall, I’m sure, that the monuments and institutions along Paseo del Prado, along with El Retiro Park, make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site known logically as Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences.  The most significant institutions along Paseo del Prado are the 3 museums that make up Madrid’s Golden Triangle of Art–the Reina Sofía Museum, the Thyssen Museum, and the Prado Museum.  Paseo del Prado and the Prado Museum are both named for the meadow (prado, in Spanish) that used to lie where the boulevard and museum are now located.

The Hotel Ritz–currently officially known as Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid–is a Belle Époque hotel that opened in 1910.  It was King Alfonso XIII who decided that Spain needed a luxury hotel to show that Madrid was on par with other grand European capitals.  Yes, they let me in for lunch.  They were quite accommodating, as a matter of fact.

Prado Museum

The enormous Prado is Madrid’s most famous museum.  It’s Spain’s counterpart to the Louvre in Paris.  Photography of the museum’s collections is not allowed.  I took the picture above in the museum’s entranceway.  Nobody seemed to mind.  But I put my camera away after that.

I mentioned above in the part of the post about the Lázaro Galdiano Museum that up until this day, El Greco had been my favorite Spanish artist, but that I wasn’t so sure by the time the day was over.  This was because Goya was starting to win me over.  It started at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum with Goya’s small witch-themed paintings, especially the famous The Witches’ Sabbath.  At the Prado, I came across more and more Goya paintings that I found fascinating.  Francisco Goya (1746-1828) often painted dark paintings with dark themes.  His Witches paintings certainly fall into that category, as do his paintings of the horrors of war.  El Greco (1541-1614) made his mark 2 centuries earlier.  As his nickname indicates, he was actually Greek, despite being considered a Spanish artist.  His birthname was Doménikos Theotokópoulos.  He moved to Spain in his 30s and did his most noteworthy art there, which is why he’s considered a major figure in Spanish art.  He’s mostly associated with Toledo, where he lived until his death.  I’ve always admired his art because it comes across as shockingly modern.  This is in large part due to his not bothering to capture figures and environments completely naturally.  I’d say that much of his work comes across has expressionistic, bordering on abstract.

But then at the Prado I saw Goya’s “Black Paintings”.  They consist of 14 murals he painted in his home in his later years.  The subjects depicted are only related by being dark and depicting dark themes.  There’s even another take on Witches’ Sabbath, which once again depicts the devil as a goat.  Goya painting these as he was concerned about the state of mankind and in particular, the state of Spanish politics at the time.  After his death, the paintings were removed from the walls and eventually found there way to the Prado.  The most famous of the Black Paintings, is Saturn Devouring His Son, another depiction of mythological intrafamilial brutality.  I just eat it up!

Of course, there’s more to the Prado than El Greco and Goya.  1 of the artists most associated with the Prado is Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age and the Spanish Baroque style.  His most well-known painting at the Prado is Las Meninas (“The Ladies in Waiting” in English).  In the painting, Margaret Theresa of Spain–daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and future Holy Roman Empress–is being attended to at age 5.  On the left is a depiction of Velázquez himself.  The king and queen are reflected in a mirror.

And also above in the part of the post about Lázaro Galdiano Museum, I mention that there’s more of Hieronymus Bosch to come.  Although the Prado overwhelmingly features Spanish art, 1 of its most famous paintings is the most famous nightmare to come out of the mind of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516).  Just like El Greco is the Spanish nickname for the guy from Greece, El Bosco is the Spaish nickname for Hieronymus Bosch.  Bosch wasn’t his real last name.  He called himself this name after the forest (bosch in Dutch, bosque in Spanish) area where he grew up.  His birthname was Jheronimus van Aken.  Why he created such nightmarish depictions is up for debate.  What’s not up for debate is that his most noteworthy piece is the Prado’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.  You could spend a whole day examining its infernal details.

So, what was originally planned as a visit to 3 museums resulted in a post with pictures from 1 museum.  Some of you are probably happy about that.  And I hope you agree that the art at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum is pretty damn cool, especially considering how small it is.  Really, you just can’t beat The Witches’ Sabbath.  But even without pictures from the Prado, I still wanted to explain more about the treasures that the monumental museum holds.  And I’ll get to the Naval Museum later.  Now with that, my trip is half over.

[Factual information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]