LRHS ESPAÑA 2012: Day 7 Madrid

Local tour guide, Ana, meets us at the hotel and we take off for a driving tour of the city to orient us a bit and show the

theater, financial,

ritzy and older parts of town. We stop at the bullring, where a torero must do well to make a real name for himself in bull fighting.

This driving tour ends up at the Cervantes statue and we get our pictures with Don Quixote and Sancho.

Then on to the Prado Museum, one of the great art useums of the world and we are destined to see the best it has of El Greco,

Velasquez and Goya. We learn about these painters' roles as royal artists and the development of their craft.

(employeesoneonta.com) Velasquez', Las Meninas, is the treasure of the museum and a fascinating work because of the artist's tactic to only include the royal family as spectators, kind of an early "conceptual art".For more on the many questions debated over the centuries about this painting, try this interactive virtual tour by Hisham Bizri. http://www.evl.uic.edu/chris/meninas/

(wallpaperpimper.com) Personally, I found the Goya exhibits most interesting, following his work as a royal painter through his dark period and his documentation of the revolt against Napolean, as seen in this painting of "El tres de mayo". Goya became an amazing master of the use of light in his paintings, especially well demonstrated in this painting. The kids are pretty much museumed out already, but after lunch we push on to the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art (20th century). Our local guide leaves us and Raquel, who is also local to Madrid) preps us for Picaso's "Güernica". During the Spanish Civil War, as Franco was gradually winning control over Spain (1936-1939) and Hitler was setting his eyes on the rest of Europe, a little show of power, or perhaps a test of some new encendiary bombing capability was arranged between the two fascists for the small town of Gùernica, where no military installations were present and predominantly women and children were killed. For more on this provocative painting and its effect on the world go to:http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp Sorry if the link is not working...just paste it into your browser. There were four floors of the museum and I only saw one in an hour and a half.