Museums! Famous stuff!

In Madrid we went to the Prado and the Reina Sofia and we got in for free! The only downside- we probably had a little under an hour in the Prado and there were seriously SO MANY amazing works there. Corin (she's an art history major) and I literally ran ahead (sprinted up steps) and tore through the museum trying to see the key works. Bittersweet: I can say I saw these fantastic and super famous paintings, but I was unable to give them the time they really deserved.

Some of the paintings we saw: (the pictures are from online so sorry the quality is so bad!)

One of my favorite paintings ever!


Hieronymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
The left side is the fall, the center panel depicts the "earthly pleasures" and the right panel Hell. It was supposed to serve as a reminder to church go-ers of their sin and scare them into not indulging. Some of the details are hysterical. It's very fantastical, maybe a little Alice in Wonderland? But it's from Holland, around the same time as the Renaissance in Italy.


A Rubens painting I used as a model for a lot of my drawings my senior year of high school


Goya's Portrait of Charles IV and Family (I could geek out with some more art history, but I'll refrain)


Goya's Saturn Devouring his Son


Goya's The Third of May 1808
This painting is so powerful. It was displayed alongside The Second of May. I was impressed with how large it was


Velasquez's Las Meninas
I love this painting. She's such a little cupcake! In Barcelona I actually got to go to the Picasso Museum. It highlighted his early work, and some of his later work. Although, there was a HUGE chunk missing from when he hit Cubism. But in the 50s he did a whole series/study on Las Meninas in a cubist style. It was really awesome to see both in a few days! Here's my favorite one by Picasso, I think it's hysterical.


There were a lot of school groups at the Picasso Museum. It makes sense because of all the geometric shapes and simple colors- they would really appeal to little kids!


Picasso painted this when he was 15. Kill me.

But getting back to Madrid, after the Prado we ran to the Reina Sofia to see La Guernica! Probably Picasso's most famous work.


That guy proceeded to stand smack dab in the middle of the painting for a solid ten minutes.