DISCOVER MADRID
Madrid Museums guide

Museum of Madrid.
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. (Queen Sofia Art Center)
Madrid's museumof modern art is housed in a converted hospital whose classic, granite austerity is somewhat relieved by the two glass elevator shafts on the facade. The collection focuses on Spain's three great modern masters: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró. Take the elevator to the second floor to see the permanent collections; the other floors house visiting exhibits.

The first rooms are dedicated to the beginnings of Spain's modern-art movement and contain paintings from around the turn of the century. The focal points is Picasso's 1901 Woman in blue - hardly beautiful, but surprisingly representational compared to his later works.

Moving on to the Cubist collection, whitc includes nine works by Juan Gris, be sure to see Dalí's splintered, blue-gray Self-Portrait, in which the artist painter his favorite things- a morning newspaper and a pack of cigarettes. The other highlight here is Picasso's Musical Instruments on table, one of many variations on this theme.

The museum's showpiece is Picasso's famous Guernica, which occupies the center hall and is surrounded by dozen of studies for individual figures within it. The huge painting depicts the horror of the Nazi Condor Legion's bombing of the ancient Basque town of Guernica, in 1937, an act that brought Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to power. The work-in many ways a 20th-century version of Goya's The 3rd of May is something of national shrine, as evidenced by the solemnity of Spaniards viewing it. The paintig was not brought into Spain until 1981; Picasso, an ardent antifascist, refused to allow it to enter the country while Franco was alive.

The room in front of Guernica contains a collection of surrealist works, including six canvases by Miró, known for his childlike graphicism. Opposite Guernica is a hall dedicated to the surrealist Salvador Dalí, with paintings bequeathed to the government in the artist's will. Although Dalí is perhaps best known for works of a somewhat whimsical nature, many of these canvases are dark and haunting and bursting with symbolism. Among the best known are The Great Masturbator (1929) and The Enigma of Hitler (1939), with its broken, dripping telephone.

The rest of museum is devoted to more recent art, including the massive, gravity-defying sculpture Toki Egin, by Eduardo Chillida, considered Spain's greatest living sculptor, and five textural paintings by Barcelona artist Antoni Tapies, who incorporates material such as wrinkled sheets and straw into his works.
Calle Santa Isabel, 52 Madrid

Museo del Prado - Prado Museum.
When the Prado was commissioned by King Carlos III (King of Spain, Naples and Sicily Duke of Parma ), in 1785, it was meant to be a natural science museum. The king, popularly remembered as "Madrid's best mayor", wanted the museum, the adjoining botanical gardens, and the elegant Paseo del Prado to serve as a center of scientific enlightenment for his subjects. By the time the building was completed in 1819, its purpose had changed to exhibiting the vast collection of art gathered by Spanish royalty since the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Painting is one of Spain's greatest contributions to world culture, and Prado's jewels are works by the nation's three great masters: Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez and El Greco. he Museum also contains masterpieces of Flemish and Italian artists, collected when their lands were part of the Spanish Empire. The Museum benefited greatly from the anticlerical law of 1835, which forced monasteries, convents, and churches to turn over much of their art treasures so that the general public could enjoy them.

A visit to the Prado begins on the upper floor, whereyou enter through a series of halls dedicated to Renaissance painter. Many people hurry through these rooms to get to the Spanish canvases, bur it's worth stopping for Titian's Pontrait of Emperor Charles V and Raphael's exquisite Portrait of a Cardinal.

Doménikos Theotokópoulos - The Greek - 1514 in Candia - 1614 in Toledeo.
Next comes a hall filled with the passionately spiritual works of El Greco, the Greek-born artist who lived and worked in Toledo. El Greco is known for his mystical, elongated faces. His style was quite shocking to a public accustomed to strict, representational realism; and because he wanted his art to provoke emotion, El Greco is sometimes called the world's first "modern" painter. The Resurection and The Adoration of the Shepherds, considered two of greatest paintings, are on view here.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez.
You can the meticulous brushwork of Velázquez (Sevilla 1599- Madrid 1660) in his numerous portraits of kings and queens. Be sure to look for the magnificent "Las Hilanderas" (The Spinners), evidence of the artist's talent for painting light. One hall is reserved exclusively for the Prado's most famous canvas, Velázquez's "Las Meninas" ( The Maids of Honor), which combines a self-portrait on the artist at work with a mirror reflection on the king and queen in a revolutionary interplay of space and perspectives. Picasso was obsessed with this work and painted several copies of it in his own abstract style, now on display in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona.
Collage:  Las Meninas de Velázquez, Dalí and Picasso.
 
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - Fuendetodos 1746 – Francia, 1828.
The south end of the first floor is reserved for Goya, whose works span a staggering range of tone, from bucolic to horrific. Among his early masterpieces are portraits of the family of King Carlos IV, for whom he was court painter one glance at their unflattering and imbecilic expression, especially in the painting " The Family of Carlos IV ", reveals the loathing Goya developed for these self-indulgent and reactionary rulers. His fomous side-by-side canvases, " The Clothed Maja and The Nude Maja", may represent the young duchess of Alba, whom Goya adored and frequently painted. No one knows whether she ever returned his affection. The adjacent rooms house a series of bucolic scenes of Spaniards at play, painted as designs for tapestries.

Goya's paintings take on political purpose starting in 1808, when the population of Madrid rose up against occupying French troops. The 2nd of May portrays the insurrection at the Puerta del Sol, and its even more terryfying companion piece, The 3rd of May, depicts the night-time executions of patriots who had rebelled the day before. The garish light effects in this work typify the romantic style, which favors drama over detail, and make it one the most powerful indictments of violence ever committed to canvas.

Downstairs yoy find Goya's black painting - dark, disturbing works, completed late in his life, that reflect his inner turmoil after losing his hearing, and his deep embitterment over the bloody War of Independence. The rest of the ground floor is taken up with Flemish painting, incluing the bizzarre masterpiece "Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymous Bosch.
Calle Ruiz de Alarcón 23 Madrid - o Paseo del Prado.

Casón del Buon Retiro.
This Prado annex is just a five-minute walk from the museum and can be entered on the same ticket. The building, once a ballroom, and the formal gardens in the Ritiro are all that remain of Madrid's second royal complex, which filled the entire neighborhood until the early 19th century. On display here are 19th-century Spanish paintings and sculpture, including works by Joaquim Sorolla i Bastida and Santiago Rusiñol i Prats.
Calle Alfonso XII

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Madrid's third and newest art center, elegantly renoveted to create lots of space and natural light, opened in 1992 in the Villahermosa Palace. This ambitious collections of 800 paintings traces the history of Western art whit examples from all the important movements, beginning with 13th-century italy.

The artworks were gathered over past 70 years by industrialist Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen Bornemisza and his father. At the urging of his Spanish wife (a former Miss Spain), the baron agreed to donate the collection to Spain. Critics have described the collection as the minor works of major artists and the major work of minor artists, but the museum itself is beautiful, and its impressionist painting are the only ones on display in the country.

Two halls are devoted to the impressionists and post-impressionists, including many works by Pissarro and a few each by Renoir, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh an Cézanne.
Paseo del Prado, 8  (near the Prado Museum)

Around: Museum Caixa Forum  Paseo del Prado, 36 Madrid -
Real Jardin Botanico - Parque del Retiro -

Museo Arqueológico.
Museum of Archaeology. The museum shares its neoclassical building with the Biblioteca National (National Library). The biggest attraction here is a replica of the preistoric cave paintings in Altamira, Cantabria, located underground in the garden. Only scholars are allowed to see the real thing. Inside the museum, look for Dama de Elche, a bust of a wealthy, 4th-century Iberian woman, and notice how her headgear is a rough precursor to the mantillas and hair combs still associated with traditional Spanish dress. Be sure to see the ancient Visigothic votive crowns, discovered in 1859 near Toledo and believed to date back to the 8th century.
Calle Serrano, 13

Museo del Ejército. Army Museum.
A real treat for arms and armor buffs, this museum is right on the museum mile. Among the 27,000 items on view are a sword which allegedly belonged to the Spanish hero El Cid; suits of armor; bizarre-looking pistols with barrels capable of holding scores of bullets; Moorish tents; and a cross carried by Christopher Columbus. It's an unusually entertaining collection.
Calle de Mendez Nunez, 1.

Academia de las Bellas Artes de San Fernando. (St. Fernando Academy of fine Arts.)
Designed by Churriguera in the waning baroque years of the early 18th century, this little-visited museum is a showcase of painting and the other plastic arts. The same building houses the Institutos de Calcografia (Prints Institute), which sell limited-edition prints from original plates engraved by Spanish artists, including Goya.
Calle Alcalá, 13

Museo de San Isidro.
Just behind the church of San Andrés is the site of St. Isidro's most famous miracle, and the new museum houses the original pozo milagroso (miracle well). It is said that when Isidro's infant son Illán fell into the well one day, Isidro raised the water level so that his son floated up to the top and could be pulled out.
Plaza San Isidro