Madrid is a very different city to the other Spanish cities we have visited. It is a very new and modern city but still has some very grand buildings lining its main wide avenues. Madrid is also full of small plazas where there are numerous bars and cafes where you can sit enjoy the sunshine and watch the world pass by. It is a very Mediterranean city that reminds me a bit of Sydney without the harbour. Madrid also hosts one of the largest art galleries in the world; The Prado. There are also numerous other galleries displaying what I believe may be the best chronological representation of art of the Western world.
We decided to have a bit of luxury in Madrid and upgraded our accommodation to a 4 star hotel. We were after some cool air, a bathroom that was bigger than a cupboard and room fittings that were newer than the something that may have proceeded Franco's revolution. We also had to sort out an issue of cancelled credit cards. The bank had sent new cards to our home in Melbourne when it changed all the credit cards in a loyalty program to a Frequent Flyer program. Paul had not been notified the cards had arrived. Hence after a little embarrassment paying an account at one hotel with not one but two cards, and a swallowed card in an ATM, we contacted the bank and they issued Paul a new card in Madrid. However, the luxury of four star comes with a great cost and our newly issued credit card is already panting. Paul decided to get some washing done and I think the bill has cured him of ever getting laundry done in a hotel again. After some negotiation about 'street noise' in rooms and 'a room with a view'; again using no English and lots of hand gestures we had a lovely room that overlooked the Paseo del Prado (the name of the avenue suggests what building is the main feature on this street.
Our first afternoon we spent exploring the centre of Madrid. We walked the city following a tour in our guide book of the main plazas of Madrid. This gave us a good overview of the city and its various 'barrios' or areas. It also took us past the grand buildings of Madrid including the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), Plaza Mayor (Main plaza) and the Plaza de Villa (city square). Each of these plazas has its own character and is lined with buildings that are unique to its character. Madrid appears to be a lot quieter than Barcelona and there were less tourists around. Most of the people on Sunday afternoon seemed to be the local people of Madrid (Madrilenos) out enjoying their Sunday afternoon. Again there were lots of families and children gathered together at the tables in the cafes laughing and chatting. Like most of Spain most people do not have breakfast but tend to enjoy a long lunch and a late dinner so we were not out of place to be eating our first meal of the day in a cafe in Plaza de Santa Ana.. (The plaza of the Angels) which I think is the prettiest plaza in the city. For dinner that night we even tried something different for Spain and had a meal in a Thai restaurant. I think the owners were quite shocked to have two people ordering food and speaking English. What was more unusual for us was that the Thai waiter only spoke Thai and Spanish. Paul also had a brief conversation with a Chinese shopkeeper in Mandarin as he found he spoke more Chinese than Spanish and the shopkeeper did not speak English. All to purchase a bottle of water.
We planned our next 2 days in Madrid carefully as like any city in Europe most of the museums and galleries are closed on Monday. However, usually one is open and the Reina Sophia (the gallery named after Queen Sophia; the Spanish love their royalty more than the British and even more than the Americans would ever hope to) was open. This museum is the home of Picasso's famous painting Guernica. It would be the one painting I remember most from my first lessons in Art History in Year 8 so to see it was very moving. The symbolism in the work makes it even more poignant. Picasso painted the work as an expression of his angst over the merciless bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Picasso was living in Paris at the time and the painting has had an amazing journey to get back to its real 'Spanish home'. I spent some time watching the groups of school students sitting on the floor in front of the work wondering if they realised how fortunate they were to see one of the greatest works of Modern Art at such a young age. It is every Art teacher's dream to give a lesson in front of that work.
Paul thought we would not have enough time in Madrid to go to the Palacio Real but we managed it as most public museums in Spain do not close until 8pm. The palace has 2800 rooms, not enough time to see all of them and most are closed to the public. We did have a great tour of the sections of the palace that are open to the public. The tour guide and his delivery of the commentary was more interesting than the rooms at times. issued the whole tour with a deadpan expression, including when he made a 'dry' joke about one of the rooms. The rooms are very sumptuous with an explosion of Rococo and Baroque decoration. Paul visited the palace many years ago and wanted me to experience the clock room, where there were housed about 100 clocks that chimed in succession. He wanted me to experience what he feels it is like if you stay with my parents and the many clocks that my mother has collected chime at odd hours. To his disappointment, the clocks have been split up and put in all the rooms of the palace, so it is still like being at home but you experience the chiming in every room not just one. The guide also pointed out that there were several dining rooms as you need to have a dining room per course that you eat in Spain. He also told us that some rooms had modern appointments such as telephones which were not installed at the time of the reign of Prince Alfonso in 1700. He also told us, in his dry sense of humour, that these phones were not working, although they were prominently displayed. Quite surprising really; I wondered if they had installed the internet yet. This is possibly why the royal family do not live in this palace any more, apparently they live in a more modest residence elsewhere in the city.
I warned Paul that the next day would be fairly heavy going in terms of his art education. I must point out that I have travelled on numerous planes and trains in my married life and have never really complained. However, by 4 pm I was feeling the overload myself. We started at the Prado Museum. The museum is renown for its collection of Renaissance Art and the works of the Spanish artists Goya and Valesquez. I learned that when the Prado brought out some works by Velasquez to put on exhibition in 1990 it was only for a limited time. As so many people in Madrid wanted to see the works that when the Prado closed the exhibition 4 months later, people protested into the night outside the Prado and it had to keep its doors open until there was no queue left. Therefore the exhibition ran non stop for 2 – 3 days. You do begin to feel the overload when you walk along the long galleries lined with at least 20 different versions of Madonna and Child by various Renaissance artists that you only see in text books: Rafael, Rubens, Titian and Tinteretto. There is also a lot of Dutch and Flemish works including the famous “Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronomous Bosch, the first known work of erotic nature known in the world of Western Art. This work was being intently scrutinsed by a large group of Japanese tourists on tour. I wondered if they were getting an interpretation of the real meaning of the work; perhaps they were, hence their intense concentration.
Two famous works by Goya; “The 2nd and 3rd of May” were on display. These were works created by Goya towards the end of his life when he was no longer the favoured court painter of the kings and was living in self exile in France. Goya had gone deaf and was in ill health, the works, like Picasso's Guernica, are an expression of Goya's angst over the treatment of the Spanish people by the invasion of Napoleon's army. The works depict events that occurred in Madrid over 2 days and the expression on the faces of the figures are more moving to see 'in the flesh'. The works have just been restored and the years of black soot that had formed on the surface has been removed to show the vibrant colours that Goya used in the work. You can also see fortunately, some of Goya's court paintings he completed as commissions. You do really then appreciate the brushwork and use of light that has made him such a master.
The works of the famous painter Velasquez are also on display. These works by this artist are the ones that caused such a riot in the 1990s. Velasquez was also a court painter and his most famous work is entitled 'Las Maninas' and depicts the royal princess Infantina surrounded by her entourage. Velasquez also had enough confidence as an artist to include himself in the image, an action that was unprecedented at the time. However, the work is known for its use of perspective and Velasquez we a master of depicting expressions on the faces of his sitters. They look out of the image quite startled. Maybe they are startled by the amount of Japanese tourists observing them intently.
Finally we spent our last hours in Madrid at the Thyssen-Bornemiza Museum. This is a private collection that matches the Prado in its size and range of works. The museum is all the more interesting because it is actually two collections of works; one by the Baron von Thyssen-Bornemiza, a German-Hungarian magnate and also his wife, who is a leading Spanish actress and Miss Espana, who made her fame by first marrying a Lex Barker, who made the infamous Tarzan movies. You can really see her interest in art styles exhibited in the range of works she has collected; lots of colour, works from the Expressionist era and obscure North American artists. It seems to really reflect her taste and that of a wealth woman with a lot of money and perhaps more than a bit of panache. She seems to have taken over her collecting abilities from her late husband, if anything at all.
Paul and I are now 'audio guide' experts and we think we probably could start our own company in competition to those in most European galleries. Our choice of commentators would be more of the flavour of the country of the gallery we are in. We think that the same English and American women must travel all over Europe recording their voices in every gallery. We will test this out at our final destination in Spain, Bilbao. As many of you know the feature of Bilbao is the Guggenheim museum; as the Guggenheim family is American maybe the commentary in the audio guide will have a German or Russian accent?
