Rainy day. Prado Museum, Madrid. June 2018
[from FB post: June 8, 2018]
Museum Review : the Prado
Surprising amount of Italian and Flemish art mainly due to politics and patronage.
I don't like El Greco. Half the museum seems to be Goya - loan some out already.
A lot of Roman sculpture, but no provenance. Was it dug up here in Spain? Inquiring minds want to know.
Really, seriously, bad lighting on some of the large format paintings. What's up with that? Too much glare.
No photos....grrrrr.
I recommend the 2 day ticket. See it in two installments rather than a marathon.
Happy I went - not remotely in the "Pantheon of Museums" for me.
I was in Madrid for a week staying south of Atocha Station in the Puente de Vallecas neighborhood. The area was mostly Latin American immigrants and I loved the vibe. People were super friendly. Later I was told that it was not such a savory area of Madrid - I felt quite at home!
A rain day meant a museum day, so the Prado was high on my "back up plan" list. It was a major museum in Europe and I was in Madrid after all. I arrived just before opening and there was a queue. It was raining and I stupidly did not bring my umbrella (thinking there would be no queue and I could just dash inside). Oh well, I got wet.
The building that today houses the Museo Nacional del Prado was designed by architect Juan de Villanueva in 1785. It was constructed to house the Natural History Cabinet, by orders of King Charles III. However, the building's final purpose - as the new Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures - was the decision of the monarch's grandson, King Ferdinand VII, encouraged by his wife Queen Maria Isabel de Braganza. The Royal Museum, soon quickly renamed the National Museum of Paintings and Sculptures and subsequently the Museo Nacional del Prado, opened to the public for the first time in November 1819.
What was surprising to me was how much of the museum was filled with Dutch (Flemish) and Italian masters. The Prado is one of the premier museums of Europe (and of the world), but I didn't really get the connection of Spain with Italy and the Netherlands during my visit. Of course, there was a connection. Spain used to be fabulously wealthy from all that gold pillaged from the Americas. Spanish kings and queens commissioned artworks from masters (or invited them in residence) with reckless abandon. If an artist were from cold and dreary Flanders or Holland, who wouldn't want to go paint in sunny Spain for a few years?
All that Greco-Roman statuary? Purchased by rich nobility from further east or dug up in Roman Spain? Hmmm.... no indication.
Needless to say, there were Goyas and El Grecos galore (too many?). As I mentioned, I just am not a fan of Spanish art. Sorry, Picasso. I felt like a cultural heathen after my visit. Why was I not more joyous? I absolutely lost myself in the art museums in Vienna a few years later [see: Art History Museum; Albertina].
I actually enjoyed my time in the Prado, review notwithstanding, and was happy to have something to do on a rainy day. I oooh'd and ahhhh'd at the masters in the appropriate places. For some reason however, the Prado left me feeling flat. For a purpose-built art museum I was not that impressed. The problem with so many art museums in palaces is that purpose-built ones then have a ridiculously high bar to match. In spite of the collection, for me the Prado was unremarkable as a building.
Saw the Prado, check. I had some decent pad thai afterward for lunch - more memorable than the museum. At least it didn't rain on me on the way back to Puente de Vallecas.
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