The Life and Death of Painting in Madrid
Day 2.
I don’t really know anything about Madrid. I never took Spanish and my high school European history teacher was always more interested in telling us that witches were going to kill all our cats than actually teaching us about Europe. She was really a batty lady, and probably should not have been put in charge of anyone’s education about anything. I do know that Madrid is home to three all-star paintings: Las Meninasby Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, The Third of May 1808by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, and Guernica by Pablo Picasso.
The first painting I saw was The Third of May. I stumbled into a room, ducking out of the way of a herd of school children, and noticed The Colossus, formally attributed to Goya. Looking around I noticed that one of the other rooms contained the Black Paintings. After quickly browsing through them I went off looking for The Third of May. There were only a handful of people looking at the painting, which surprised me, but not as much as the painting itself. The paint is so thin on this painting. You can clearly see the red brown ground through the paint. This is why so many reproductions look like water colors. I always wondered. The only places where Goya used an impasto is where he painted the blood. It was as if that was the only real part of the image. The rest was a dream, pulled thinly over reality. But the blood, it stuck to the painting.
I went looking for Las Meninas. After finding The Third of May I decided that I needed to see the other famous paintings in the Prado before I left. Unlike The Third of Maythis painting was surrounded by tourists (most of them had those audio guides stuck to the side of their heads. One of them dropped his pencil and had to sneek over the rope to retrieve it without the guard seeing) I have never been that impressed with Las Meninas, but upon seeing it in real life I finally got it. The effect of being stared at, and how the concept of who is doing the looking in a painting is turned on its head, was so clear it was startling.
Guernica is not in the collection of the Prado, its in the Modern art museum (the Renia Sofia). I had no illusions that visiting this painting was going to be a somber moment. And it wasn’t. The room was flooded with school groups of all ages as well as a smattering of lone tourists like me. I got a look at the painting, but that was all it was. Just a glance. I saw it the way that one sees passing royalty, just a quick look from the crowd but enough to say that I was, if only briefly, in the presence of greatness.
Now, after seeing three truly amazing paintings, a wander around the Renia Sofia does betray a hole in the Spanish painting canon. Most of the Abstract Expressionist period is filled in with works by American artists. As is much of the PostModern exhibits. According to the museum there was, in fact, no death of painting in Madrid. It does give the impression, though, that as the continuum just kind of stalls. I imagine there is good reason for this, Franco was not tolerant of the avant garde arts. But Catalan artist Antoni Tàpiesdid become very well known as an Abstract Expressionist and was influenical both inside and outside of Spain. He is present in the museum, but his contemporaries are not as visible. Antonio López Garcíaand the other NeoRealists (I like the term Magic Realists better, but writing seems to have cornered the market on that one) are given a cursory nod more than anythings else. What gives? This is Spain’s national museum of Modern, PostModern, and contemporary art. Where else will I learn about Spain’s Modern history of painting? Why won’t you tell me more?