Ok, let’s do some catch-up. My life this week has been a comedy in the truest sense - mishaps minor and grand, but everyone is laughing, in love, or at worst harmlessly inept in the end.
[Note: please observe that the previous blog, with “Three-pio” in the title, will be / is about 5/22, while this post you are reading now is about the previous day, 5/21. Eventually we will get into a chronological order, unless I decide that’s boring, in which case, in the sage words of Samuel L Jackson aka Ray Arnold from Jurassic Park, “hold onto your butts.”]
On Sunday, 5/21, I was feeling depressed and existential. I don’t remember why except that I was still recovering from a cold and/or case of jet lag. However I felt, I refused to let my travel experience be foiled so I pulled myself together and advanced upon one of my strategic objectives, el Museo del Prado.
I must immediately confess to great art enthusiasts that I am pretty much a tourist where it concerns disciplines like painting and sculpture. I like Nighthawks, I like Monet, pretty much any impressionism will win me over...sculpture is amazing, especially when it involves women’s hair...is Renoir an impressionist? You see what I mean. I enjoy but do not often understand. So I enjoyed my visit to this museum, and I am okay with the fact that it did not conjure in me the sort of orgasmic thrill that some feel in the presence of great works (there were a couple near-exceptions which I will describe soon).
The line to get in was looooong. I didn’t get there as early as I meant to (and when I left later, I observed that the lines were much shorter than either the tour book or Google had advised, so if you ever visit, come to this museum whenever the hell you want as long as it is not when those “in the know” say to go). The wait was pleasant, though, due to a serenading accordion player.
Once inside, I attempted, as is my wont, to chart my own course, but this museum is oddly restrictive in one wing and maze-like in the other. I had modest success, which allowed me to see first what proved to be my favorites of the entire visit - paintings by Eduardo Rosales and Joaquin Sorolla.
I am as a stained glass moth before the light and color of impressionistic (or Romantic? - again, forgive my ignorance) works. Rosales had one painting of a monastery interior with soft pink sunlight that brought me nearly to tears. Numerous Sorolla beach scenes were on display - many with joyous, luminous bodies enjoying themselves in or near the water - but the one which touched me the most was called Peppers. It brings us into a poor home, where a young girl crouches over a bowl of red peppers under the patient yet intent gaze of an elderly man hunched in a low, wooden chair. Bands of light splash across the interior from an unseen, open door, enriching everything they touch.
Another highlight for me was Goya, who I have never quite understood before, but seeing in person works such as The Third of May 1808 and Saturn Devouring His Son was breathtaking and helped it click for me. Some may dislike the comparison, but for me this is the art version of hearing a great band live. A good band always sounds good, but live it sounds amazing. Being steps away from the actual brushstrokes of French soldiers executing Spanish militants, seeing close up the mad, despairing eyes of Saturn, distressed at what he yet persists in doing, was another sort of elevating experience.
Rounding out the “memorable” artists were Bosch and Rubens and, on the museum’s upper floor, a fine sculpture exhibit which stands tall in my mind not so much for the sculptures themselves as for the vast cloister in which they were displayed. The old world loved to go big, and I am grateful to them for that.
When I was done with the art museum, and after a brief rest at my temporary home, I went out for my typical evening walk. Madrid is alive with flesh and beating hearts and pacing feet - a slow, sonorous rhythm, hands caressing hands, shoulders, cheeks. I saw in Madrid so many living people who smiled, talked, kissed, lied together in parks. At eight, nine, ten o’clock at night I felt the city throb with the gathered heartbeat of its inhabitants.
Northwest arch of Plaza Mayor, evening
Calle de Arenal (I think), evening
I could learn from this - I could be nourished by this. I already have been, in a small way.
this is all so damn moving....I mean it!
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