VISITING THE PRADO

When we were in Madrid a couple of weeks ago, we took advantage of the Prado Museum's generosity & queued with thousands of others to be let in for free during the last 2 of their opening hours.  In that time we saw most of the ground floor exhibits, which included a LOT, in fact 99.9 % religious paintings.  I don't mean to offend anyone, but...GROAN. 

The most beautiful was the Fra Angelico.  When we were heading there today, I understood we were about to see magnificent paintings by great masters, but...I DID NOT want to see anymore nativity scenes or crucified Christ's!

Tough luck! A lot of the Prado's collection IS all that & a great variety of saints, along with studies inspired by Greek & Roman mythology.  I coped by relishing the use of light & the lustre & details painted on to fabrics & clothing.  The most interesting paintings were those using local people as models. They had a charm & authenticity about them.  There were a lot of Ruebens here, as he was an ambassador of Spain &well respected. Even so, did he have to paint so MANY naked chubby women????! No one really needs to see that much flab & cellulite!!  Speaking of grossness, I was rather disturbed by an interest in human oddities enjoyed by the court of 17th century Spain. There were paintings of dwarves & people of disability, but the most cruel, was that of an obese 6 year old girl.  She was brought to court as an exhibit because of her weight & painted in a dress & then naked! Both paintings hang in the Prado & I found them particularly cruel & disturbing.

To relieve the boredom, Jeff & I played 'spot the Habsburgs'.  The Habsburgs ruled Spain for a long time & tended to lean towards in-breeding!  As a result, they have some rather distinctive facial features! And lets just say....they were quite easy to spot!

One interesting aspect of this Museum is that a lot of the collection comes from the former Royal Palace collection.  The Palace was burned down in the 16-1700's (Sorry, hopeless with dates) & whilst it was up in flames, people were inside, cutting paintings from their frames, rolling them up & then tossing them to other people outside. Even with all that effort, a lot of paintings went up in flames.

The Prado is one of those museums that one MUST do when in Madrid, & yes, it does have some incredible works of art, HOWEVER....I don't feel the need or desire to go there again!

To recharge the batteries, we decided to try the Madrid version of takeaway. It's a bocadillo calamares & it's delicious! Deep fried calamari in a roll!  This is what they all snack on at half time when watching Real (re-arl) Madrid play (soccer)!