MADRID

We’ve managed to see quite a bit of Spain. The highways are good and the driving, well, no more perilous than in some other places  (see my entry on The Driving Olympics). The neat thing about driving in Spain is that it’s not unusual to turn a corner and catch sight of one castle or two cathedrals. Loads of them are scattered en route from Andalucia to Madrid and northward.

Driving northward from Andalucia, I watched the dry land turn green, thinking the line, "Verde, que te quiero verde (Green, how I love you green) from Garcia-Lorca's poem, Romance Somnambulo. 

There are miles upon miles of olive trees dotting the landscape. Spain must be one of world's top producers, yet I searched in vain for the tree producing that plump green one with the little red pimento in it. 

The flat plains of La Mancha approach as we get closer to Castilla and our Madrid destination. One can't be in Spain without thinking at some point of Don Quixote. Yes, there are  some windmills as one passes through La Mancha and many towns claiming to be be Don Quixote's bithplace, if not that of Cervantes. For a brief article by a traveller recalling Quixote's quixotic journey click here.   "If there is one novel you should read before you die, it is Don Quixote," said the Nigerian-born novelist, Ben Okri. Miguel de Cervantes' own life reads rather like a novel: he was rescued by ransom after living anything but an ordinary life (if such a life exists). And to him is credited the saying, "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd."

Madrid is only about 45 miles away from Toledo, the place of my last writing. So let’s go there next. We’ll spend a couple of nights at the most reasonably priced hotel we can find these days near the “golden triangle,” an area encompassing three of Madrid’s major art museums within walking distance. Construction was in progress on the street outside, as seemed evident everywhere in Madrid. Here’s one posh corner we passed to get to the Prado, construction trucks around it.

I ’ve got to admit that Madrid isn’t my favorite BIG CITY in Spain. That would be Barcelona or Seville. 
But, Wow, Madrid offers such a candy-box of concentrated treasures for an art enthusiast. That’s all I did while in Madrid: go to art museums, and walk through a bit of El Retiro park in getting to them.

Not enough to get a real impression of the city. Having set my sights only on museums, I admit is a typical tourist mistake ... almost like the guy who  only stays in Holiday Inns no matter what country.
                                               

Today’s Thought:

Where there are crossroads and you can't conceive the sea; where the fugitive always returns, let's say I'm talking about Madrid.

Antonio Flores, singer and writer


Day 1 was spent in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which had a special exhibit called “Heroines” that I really enjoyed. It’s on until June 5, if you’re near Madrid. Otherwise, click on  the virtual exhibit below. It was such fun, with paintings grouped thematically, not chronologically or stylistically. Alongside a classical depiction of Artemis might be a contemporary image of Venus Williams. Different genres,cultural styles and “voices”  get mixed together and work.
It was exhilarating and I hope that in its travels it may pick up even more content and context. No photos were permitted, but this virtual exhibit online is even better (click). This title expands to include “heroines” in the iconography of solitude as well war, sorceresses as well as saints and martyrs, and women painters. 

The show encompasses a range of roles for women that (debatably) emphasize feminist empowerment, as the publicity says::

The history of Western art is full of images of seductive, indulgent, submissive, defeated and enslaved women. But the women whom this exhibition centres on are strong women: active, independent, defiant, inspired, creative, domineering and triumphant. (source:http://www.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2011/heroinas/index_en)

The permanent collection in this museum is good too across different eras. Since the works come from the once-private collection of this donor-family, you get a sense of “personal favorites” being presented. The gallery rooms are “friendly” and easy to walk through and enjoy, something usually more typical of smaller “boutique” museums than huge, if beautiful, storehouses. I’d say my favorites in this respect are the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston and the Frick and Neue in NYC. The latter I love also for its charming café.

The second day we went to The Prado: justifiably renowned for its paintings and the place eto see the Spanish masters like Velasquez, Ribera, Zurburan, El Greco and Goya. It has one of the best collections of major European masters across countries and epochs. I think the collection is particularly strong in the Baroque period. The Prado holds some of the best treasures in Western painting history. But I've got to say there's no "excitement" to wandering through i, like there is for me at the Met in NY. Don't know why, but maybe the light is too dim or the rooms are too heavy, or the museum guards are falling asleep.  

The third day we went to the Reina Sofia, the third gem in this crown of museums. It focuses upon contemporary art: that is from 1900. For example, there’s a strange Buñuel avant-garde movie, Spanish Civil war photo art, Picasso’s Guernica, Gris and Cubism; Dali and Miro, among other notables of modern art. Also showing are special exhibitions focusing on more recent art works, though the one I saw, conceptually intricate and highly idiosyncratic, was “interesting but…” I carry in my head my own personally concentric and laterally parallel sense of art history, so viewing someone else’s obsession was, at the end of my museum tour of Madrid, not particularly memorable.

Aesop by Velasquez, at the Prado

Of all the wonderful art I saw, I was most moved by the amazing figurative work. For example, here’s Velasquez portrait of Aesop. For me, it’s artistic magic to make a person appear in full honesty (handsome or grotesque), who impels the viewer (the other side of the painting) to stop and look further, to leave the museum and become really engaged in that person and moment. And when this is done with only what is necessary and without any display of virtuosity or technical pyrotechnics, well, that’s one confident painter! I was gripped also by the expressivity of Goya, that painter way ahead of his time. And the wonderful invention of Miro.  I’d better stop. There is soooo much more to look at, to  wonder at, to love.

Three days full of museums. A bit much, perhaps. I was too tired after days spent in concentrated looking and walking to wait for the usual 10 pm supper. This Spanish custom left me famished and foul-tempered. It leaves others exhuberant, ready to continue the nightlife so evident in Spain. Because even the kids are out with parents socializing at night, and all are up and at it early next morning.


The typical adult breakfast is a strong café and the baristas are mong the first shops to open. How do the Spaniards manage it? Yet they certainly seem vigorous and very sociable. Usually I’m keen to try on the local customs; but I was just too tired. I’m especially sorry to have missed is Madrid’s world-class Archaeological Museum, but even I couldn’t manage to squeeze in another, having hit the critical-overload function along my arc of discoveries.

We ate at the museum cafés for lunch and had only tapas for dinner. The food was good but not worth telling you about. The tapas were expensive and more than double the price for the same plate of shrimp we’d eat in Andalucia. Yet Madrid’s restaurants can be memorable. Last time I visited (and ate at 10 pm!), I eagerly went with a small group of fellow-travelers for a regional specialty: roast suckling pig. Typically a Castillian dish, Cochinillo Asado is served throughout Spain, with different areas boasting the best. 

It’s a meal fit for the International Society of Gluttons (of course I loved it). It’s a very tasty dish, served whole and head-on for a feast. It also heads straight on to one’s arteries, of course, but what a delicious memory: a scrumptiously crisp outer layer, moist and tender meat and flavorful spicing. Emeril says it’s easy to make. But I'm not carting a whole little pig home, not by your chinny-chin-chin!

I did encounter a new spice in Spain that I absolutely must have in my kitchen for ever after: pimenton. It’s a gorgeous deep red (like paprika) with a rich, roasted flavor and distinctive peppery bite.. Those of you who already know and love it, be sure I’ll catch up with you. I’m adding it to nearly everything but coffee.

Next visit we'll drive northward to see Burgos and Bilbao. Hope to see you there! 
Today's Painting:

Interior Journey by Janet Strayer

 
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