El Museo del Prado

I went to El Museo del Prado on Thursday with my art history class. This was a truly amazing experience. This museum is to Spain what the Louvre is to France. It contains works by all the great European masters and entire collections of the greatest Spanish artists before the modern period. I am in love with this place. It is located in an old mansion beside Madrid´s royal botanical gardens that has undergone several additions and reconstructions.

We spent about half an hour viewing and discussing the painters of the Baroque era, such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubens. I appreciate these paintings although I don´t particularly love them all. I did especially enjoy this one to the right called "Saturno" by Rubens. It depicts the time when Saturn, fearing conquer by one of his sons, ate them all. I was just wandering along, enjoying myself in the museum, when this painting hit me full force. It´s about medium size but it depicts an old man eating a baby. This is fantastic!

After my teacher and classmates left, I stuck around for another 2 hours or so just walking through the place. They have some very famous pieces and I enjoyed seeing them. One of my favorites was another of the Baroque period called "La Piedad" by Daniele Crespi (below). You can´t really see the detail in this copy, but Mary Magdalene´s eyes are tinted red and her facial expression is tragically ghastly. She looks like she is so pained that she is about to cry tears of blood. This one caught my attention so strongly that I lost my breath and had goosebumps. I kinda wanted to cry it is that strong. In person, her face is haunting.

Right now, the Prado has a special El Greco exhibit. I was on my way to leave when I decided that I may as well check it out before it moves on February 20. We´re going back as a class but I thought since I was already there, I may as well. This was before I knew anything about El Greco or his art. I had heard of him but never seen anything by him previously. I was shocked at how much I adored his work. It is so deliciously creepy and haunting. It´s the stuff of horror movies but with a strange religious Spanish Renaissance thing going on. I stayed in his exhibit for about 45 minutes, just absolutely absorbed in the images.

He is famous for elongating the bodies of his subjects to make them appear larger than life and placing their heads in the clouds with a very low horizon. This makes them appear supernatural and ghost-like to me. I loved them. I am going back again before they leave because I was so enchanted.