A Day at the Prado

The Prado, they say, is one of the world's four or five great museums, and, if you like painting only, and almost entirely Spanish and Italian, 15th-19th centuries, this is the place for you. Also just about every sort of depiction imaginable, to 15th-19th century Spanish and Italian painters and their patrons, of the annunciation, the adoration, the assumption, the conception, the ascent, the descent, the piety, the humiliation, the crucifixion, the many, many martydoms (not nearly enough, however), the judgements (last, next to last etc.), the spoliations, the preachings, the coronations, the visions, the epiphanies, the cardinal vices/virtues, the apotheoses, etc; you get the picture. For me, it might have been an atheological hell. And a lot of paintings of Spanish royalty, nobility, high clergy, etc., also high on my list of personal favorites. On the other hand, it is one of very, very few museums in which I have actually purchased a guidebook, just to make sure we didn't miss any of the 40 or so supreme masterpieces (seriously) and have to come back. But I probably will want to go back some time. Figuring out the apparently Cabalistic numbering system of the rooms was a challenge in itself.

The Prado has a no pix policy and the will and manpower to enforce it. Frowny-faced guards everywhere. In a place like this, you don't dare. But they have a quite decent website which I have referenced below in the "not pictured" department.

Current entrance

Statue of Goya; it seemed like at least half the

paintings were his; despite being (or maybe

because...) the court painter, he had a darker

side, a really dark side, kept to himself, but

revealed in a very large and interesting hall,

all by itself...

Older entrance

Not pictured department (because you can't snatch things from the Prado's website):

I am pleased to say, as a northern painting fan, that of all the famous paintings at the Prado, even including Goya's 3rd of May, nothing drew a crowd except Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights," http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/el-jardin-de-las-delicias-o-la-pintura-del-madrono/

I consider myself something of an expert on San Sebastians, and I have so far found only El Greco's version bold enough to paint an arrow into the groin area; http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/san-sebastian/  ouch!

And lastly, I have retitled Velazquez' "St. Anthony Abbot and Paul, first hermit" to be "I'm loving it; or, the miraculous delivery of a cheeseburger to SS Anthony and Paul"  http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/san-antonio-abad-y-san-pablo-primer-ermitano/