The train to Madrid was a slower one. We got on at 9am and arrived (about 15 minutes late) at Madrid around 4pm. After some initial bemusement we worked out the way to the metro and managed, despite the best efforts of the machine, to buy a rechargeable card for the Metro. That seemed a little gratuitous given the small number of journeys we were likely to make, but is apparently the only way. Contactless charging is clearly still a distant dream ….. However, the route to the hotel was easy; about seven stops north to a stop called Tribunal right next door to the Madrid History Museum.
An excellent evening meal of tapas in a very friendly restaurant set us up well to explore the next day and, just to be sure, we spent a bit of time booking ahead for tickets to the Prado Gallery. Even when we booked in the early evening, the first entry available was 11.00am, so it was worth booking early, though this did us a nice relaxed start.
We decided to walk down to the Parque de el Retiro (literally meaning ‘retreat’), but, after a stop for a very nice breakfast (wild mushrooms on sourdough) only had time to see a small part of the western edge. The park is 292 acres and while we were there was popular with school groups – not a bad way to spend a morning at school! Then we headed back down to the Prado.
The Prado is vast and very appropriately we went in through the Goya entrance on the northern side. The main entrance at the front is the Velázquez entrance, perhaps indicating something of a hierarchy in Spanish art. Both names are very apposite given that this gallery (officially called the Museo Nacional del Prado) has the best collection of Spanish art in the world, along with an extensive collection of Italian art. The collection apparently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures, along with other types of works of art and various historic documents. About 1,300 of these are on display at any given time, with approximately 3,100 works on temporary loan to various other galleries and museums.
This scale makes it clear that a day at the Prado has to be focused and we had one initial focus; The Garden of Earthly Delights.
This incredible triptych is by the artist known as Hieronymous Bosch. I say that because his name is actually Jheronimus van Aken, but he signed himself off as Hieronymous Bosch as a nod to his town of birth in the Netherlands ‘s-Hertogenbosch (literally ‘Duke’s forest’ in Dutch and generally known as “Den Bosch” (‘the forest’)). He clearly knew a thing or two about branding as well as art. The painting is on an oak panel and was painted between 1490 and 1510 and is one of only 25 paintings which are definitively attributed to Bosch. Some others are attributed to his workshop, but it seems that it is difficult to identify works because of the complexity and variety of his styles.
The Garden or Earthly Delights is known as De tuin der lusten in Dutch and this literally translates as ’The garden of lusts’; somehow this seems more appropriate. The three panels represent the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Earthly Delights and finally Hell. The level of detail of each panel means that even standing there for 10-15 minutes will still only give you a very partial sense of what is going on and some areas would need a direct connection into the artist’s brain to appreciate what is going on. Most interpretations, given Bosch’s religious beliefs, assume that the work is a warning against the perils of temptation. The two outer panels place the work on the Third Day of Creation. However, the intricacy of the symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, mean that there are as many interpretations as there are people in the picture. Whatever, the overall impact is, for want of a better word, gobsmacking and constantly draws the eye, despite some other incredible works by Bosch in the same room.
Another three hours in the gallery and we only scratched the surface with a selection of works by Goya, Velazquez, Titian and many others including Brueghel(s). Brueghels plural because the Brueghel family were a Flemish dynasty of painters and in the Prado were works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder; Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s sons who continued their father’s work, specializing in copies of his work, but at the same time developing their own styles. One interesting feature of some of their work is the anthropomorphising of monkeys and painting them in essentially human situations. This was continued by another Brueghel family hanger-on called David Teniers. Teniers married Anna Brueghel, the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder, in 1637. This had the effect of uniting two major Flemish art families and also forged strong links with Rubens. Rubens collaborated extensively with her father and Rubens was also Teniers’ guardian. A walk through the rooms of the Prado was a walk through the history of Flemish Art and the families who were pivotal figures in the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque periods.
With our brains visually overloaded, we set off for a walking tour around the rest of Madrid (or at least the parts in walking distance!). First stop was the Plaza Mayor – an amazing open colonnaded square built between 1580 and 1619 during the reign of Philip III. The central statue in the square is not surprisingly of Philip III – they do like to take credit for these things!
From there we headed to the Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena (a relatively modern Baroque cathedral) and past the Royal Palace and the Cathedral Museum and slowly (we were knackered!) back to the hotel.
The next morning our train to Cadiz was midday, so we headed down to the main Atocha station, dropped our bags at a luggage drop and queued at opening time for the Reina Sofia Museum. The main purpose was to see Picasso’s Guernica. Picasso painted this at home in Paris and he was responding to the 1937 bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque Country in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany’s Condor Legion and Fascist Italy. The painting was then exhibited at the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition and at various places around the world, raising funds for Spanish war relief. This gave the painting an immediate level of fame, one which has grown more over time judging from the numbers of people who headed straight to it when the gallery opened. Seeing it made one realise why many people regard it as one of the most powerful anti-war statements. The presence of a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames just symbolise the horror of war – a lesson we don’t entirely seem to have learnt.
However, it was a flying visit to the gallery as we needed to be at Atocha station at 11.30 for the fast train to Cadiz ……