Tuesday, January 08, 2008

When You´re Royalty, You Can Buy Good Art

So um, yeah. The Prado. Amazing, awesome, and more than what was promised to me. I see now why it´s considered a world-class museum. I spent 5 hours there, and barely saw anything. Well, I saw everything, technically, but I didn´t get to really contemplate it properly, or spend much time on it.

Favorites include works by El Greco, Goya, and Bocsh. I saw The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Third of May, Velazquez´s Las Meninas, and lots of really, really good art. Amazing, especially when my best museum experience was the National Gallery in Washington. And since I got to study a lot of the art that I saw today*, it was even better.

The experience of standing in front of Goya´s The Third of May was...indescribable. It´s a painting I´ve always admired, but standing before it, in person, seeing the size of the painting, the brush strokes, the actual colors and composition as the painter did...the work suddenly takes on a new power. I think I gaped at that painting for a good 5 minutes before Lance tugged me along to the next room.

Well, we´re off to Barcelona in the morning. Whee!

*I should have majored in art history too, damnit. I guess I´ll just have to study on my own...

2 comments:

g-girl said...

wow. the garden of earthly delights and las meninas in person??? so jealous..

PossumCrepes said...

I'm glad you are enjoying yourselves. When are you flying back? I'll be sure to have some bread ready for you.