Prado
Monday, August 21
The main reason I wanted to visit Madrid was the Prado Museum. The “Museo del Prado” in Madrid is one of the largest and most important art museums in Europe and probably even in the world. There are thousands of oil paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures in the museum. The Prado is particularly known for its excellent collection of paintings by Spanish painters such as El Greco, Zurbarán, Murillo and of course Velazquez.
Since I had studied art history at University before studying illustration at HAW Hamburg, I already knew many of the artists and works from the lectures on Spanish Art, but had never seen the original paintings (as I’ve never been to Madrid before).
One afternoon after work the time had come and Christoph and I finally visited the famous Prado Museum! Although I already knew many of the paintings from my art history classes, it was something completely different to have the original art works in front of me in full size. Most of the oil paintings by the famous Spanish painters were much larger than I had imagined them and sometimes covered an entire wall in the museum. Due to the size and intensity of the colors, the paintings were even more impressive than expected.
Unfortunately, it turned our that taking photos of the collection was completely forbidden throughout the museum which I respected for the most part until I saw my absolute favorite painting by Diego Velasquez, “Las Meninas,” which was also so large that it covered an entire wall in the museum.
The painting was painted in 1656 and shows a scene at the Spanish royal palace. The picture shows Princess Margarita, servants of the royal family and the artist (Velazquez himself) with a huge canvas. Since the large canvas in the painting can only be seen from behind, the question arises as to what the painter is currently painting and who the princess, the servants and the painter himself are looking at. The painting has gotten famous because it contains many small details, raises questions and there are all sorts of speculations about the painting. I was so excited to finally be able to see this great work of art that I illegally took a very quick cell phone photo of the room.
Because there was so much going on in the museum and there were so many visitors, it was impossible for me to draw on site. So my sketchbook drawing of the Prado Museum was actually created a day later at home in my apartment in Madrid. A few days later I walked to the Prado Museum building again to take the photo of my sketchbook in front of the museum that you see here.
Anyone interested in art history and Spanish painting should definitely visit the Prado Museum in Madrid! For those of you interested in art who like visiting to museums but the names of El Greco, Murillo and Velazquez don’t ring a bell, I recommend visiting the Reina Sofia Museum instead if you are in Madrid. The Reina Sofia Museum collection has equally impressive paintings by many great artist but the collection is a bit more varied, more colorful and many of the paintings are more approachable to non-art historians ;)
