History of Art Trip to Madrid- Friday 10th April

Hola Teresa y la clase de 9C de Onslow St Audreys,
This Friday just gone past I went on a day trip to Madrid to see 4 different art galleries for my class in 'Historia del Arte Siglo XX y XXI' that I am taking this semester. The weather was nice and sunny in Madrid but rainy in Valladolid so I was glad to be going to Madrid!
Our first stop on my History of Art trip was to the Fundación Juan March in Madrid where we saw an exhibition called 'Modern Taste Art Deco in Paris 1910-1935'. I have attached some photos below of the Fundación Juan March and of some of the things in this exhibition that I saw:

Fundación Juan March, Madrid

After we had visited the Fundación Juan March in Madrid we moved onto our next art gallery which was Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza where you had to pay 9 euross to see the exhibitions as it was a private collection so in the end it was just a small group of us that went (I was among them) and the rest went straight onto the Museo del Prado. Me, my spanish friend Angela and the small group of us which included the 2 professors saw 2 exhibitions. The 1st exhibition was about Raoul Dufy (who is a famous French fauvist painter). The art movement of Fauvism is basically based on the use of primary colours-red, blue, but especially green and uses different textures. I have attached some photos below of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza as well as some examples of the paintings we saw of Raoul Dufy:

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

'Interior with Open Window', Raoul Dufy

'Indian model at the window at L'impasse Guelman', Raoul Dufy

The Casino of Nice, Raoul Dufy 

'The Grid', Raoul Dufy

The second exhibition in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza was called 'Un paseo con amor y muerte: Paul Delvaux' (A walk with love and death: Paul Delvaux). Paul Delvaux is a famous Begian surrealist painter. Surrealism is about presenting the world of dreams in art so many of these paintings therefore are very strange. Surrealism is also associated with the famous Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Here are some examples of some of the works I saw-I did not put all of them as there were many more:

The Viaduct, Paul Delvaux

Crucificion, Paul Devraux

(Not sure about the name), Paul Devraux

After we had seen these two exhibitions at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, we walked over to the nearby Museo del Prado to join the rest of the students. In the Museo del Prado we just went to see the 10 Picassos which were originally from Kunstmuseum Basel which had to shut down. Picasso as I may have already said before is a famous Spanish cubist painter. Cubism is about structuring the paintings using cubes and squares and with paintings of people usually involves distorting the face. I have included a photo of the Muse del Prado and 8 of the 10 Picassos that I saw in the Museo del Prado to show you (see below). My favourite painting out of these is 'Woman with hat seated in armchair' which I thought was very funny! 

Museo del Prado, Madrid

'Man, woman and child', Picasso

'Bread and fruit dish on a table', Picasso

El Aficionado, Picasso

Seated Harlequin, Picasso

The Couple, Picasso

Woman with hat seated in armchair, Picasso

Woman with guitar, Picasso

Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine, after Courbet; Picasso

After we had seen the Picassos we were finally able to have free time to go and have lunch (it was after 2:00pm when we were able to eat). Me, my friend Angela, and a woman and by from our history of art class went together to eat and found a nice Spanish restaurant that also had lots of non-Spanish food such as pizzas, pastas and steaks as well as paellas and other typical Spanish food. I had a beef entrecote (steak) with chips for my main and it was really good. We had only been given an hour for lunch but we managed to eat and walk to the Museo Centro de Arte de Reina Sofia in time for the meeting with the rest of the group. I have attached a few photos from what we saw at the Museo Centro de Arte de Reina Sofia but I wish that I had taken more photos at the time as I do not have a photo of the all the minimalist art I saw which was really funny. Below is a photo of the Museo Centro de Arte de Reina Sofia:

  Here are some examples of minimalist paintings: 

Here are some examples of expressionist painting and sculptures (and on the right there is another example of fauvism):

Overall I had a really good day out in Madrid going round 4 different art galleries but afterwards I was absolutely exhausted. Next weekend (18th-19th April) I will be in the Basque Country in Bilbao (on 18th April) and San Sebastian (on the 19th April) so I will try to write about my experiences of the Basque culture in 2 weeks time. It was sunny today in Valladolid but towards the evening it poured down with rain. I will try and send you a postcard from Granada so you can see the full view of all of the Alhambra in sunshine (as my photo of it was not great due to the rainy weather) so expect to get that in a few weeks. 

Hope that you are all well,

Becky

Trip to Toledo and Granada 20th-22nd March

Hola Teresa y la clase de 9C de Onslow St Audreys,

I am back now in Spain after a very busy Semana Santa (Easter break) back in England. I'm sorry this entry it is so late but the week before Easter I was too busy to write this entry as I was getting ready to go home. Hope you all had a good Easter and are now all settled back into classes. The weather here in Valladolid is a little warmer but not by much and it was 21 degrees during the Easter week when I was in England! 3 weeks ago I visited Toledo (for the day) and Granada from 20-22^nd March.  

Friday 20^th March:

I had to get up very early as we had to leave Valladolid at 6:30am in the coach towards Toledo where we were spending the day. Unfortunately when we got to Toledo it had already started to rain and it continued to rain throughout the day. However I did have a very nice day in Toledo even despite the rain. We went on a city tour to start with where we had a guide who took us around different parts of the city. I saw a part of Toledo that I did not see before which I have attached some photos of below so you can see:

After we had visited Toledo, we got back on the coach for a 3 hour coach journey to the hostel in Granada. I felt very ill on the coach despite having taken my travel sickness and we stopped off at a service station where I went and had a hamburger because I was so hungry. I felt much better after I had eaten. Once we got there, we checked into the hostel-I  and a smaller group of us checked into the smaller hostel ‘Hostel Vita’ as that was not space for everyone to go the first hostel of Al-Andaluz. Later in the evening we all went out for tapas in Granada- the food took forever to arrive and in the end I did not have any because I was not hungry as I had eaten a hamburger at the service station. I was very glad I ate the hamburger at the service station as the tapas were very small and there was not much of it. Me and my friend Sharon from Fiji decided not to go the first ‘fiesta’(party) after the tapas but go to the second 'fiesta'the next night instead because we were so tired from the journey and the day out in Toledo

Saturday 21^st March:

On Saturday after breakfast at the hostel, I went on a city tour around the centre of Granada with the other international students. It started raining early on so the photos I have taken below of the places I saw on the city tour in Granada are a little dark for that reason:

After the city tour around the centre of Granada we had free time to get lunch. Me and my friend had difficulty finding places to eat in Granada so we decided to just go to the Burger King we saw while we were on the tour. However we accidentally went in the wrong direction so had to walk all the way back down the road. We found Burger King and quite unusually the server in Burger King in Granada spoke English. We then had to meet up with the group to go to The Alhambra and Generalife together. The Alhambra was huge and had many parts to it-certain parts of it I have not mentioned as they were not open to us to visit when we went.

These are the parts of the Alhambra that we visited:

-The Alcazaba (we could not go inside this part but I have taken a photo of it from outside)

-The Nasrid Palaces which included 3 palaces:

    1.) Palacio de Comares (Palace Colmares)

    2.) Palacio de los Leones (Palace of Lions)

    3.) Palacio de Carlos V (Carlos V Palace)

Generalife was the leisure villa of the Sultans of Granada, which is surrounded by orchards and gardens. I really enjoyed my trip to the Alhambra and Generalife even despite the fact we had to wait to get into The Nasrid Palaces in the rain and the weather never really improved. I have attached lots of photos of the all the parts I visited with what part they are below (when I know):

Carlos V Palacio

Carlos V Palacio

(Dentro) Carlos V Palacio

(Dentro) Carlos V Palacio

Entrance to the Alhambra

La Alcazaba

Inside the Alhambra

Another part of the Alhambra 

Inside the Alhambra

Inside the Alhambra

Me and my friend Sharon from Fiji inside the Alhambra

Inside the Alhambra

Palacio de los Leones

Palacio de los Leones

Palacio de los Leones

Palacio de los Leones

Palacio de los Leones

Close-up of lions in Palacio de los Leones

Palacio de Comares

Me at Palacio de Comares

Me and my French friend at Palacio de Comares

Palacio de Comares

Gardens inside Villa in Generalife

The Alhambra

Daraxa's Garden (Jardines de Daraxa) 

Me inside Gardens in the Alhambra

Inside the Alhambra

Gardens inside the Alhambra

Inside the Alhambra

The Garden of the Partal (Jardines del Partal) 

Church in the Alhambra

Generalife Gardens

Generalife gardens

The Garden of the Partal (Jardines del Partal) 

Tower of the Alhambra

Gardens in Generalife

Gardens in Generalife

Arch in Gardens in Generalife

Villa of Generalife

Generalife

22nd March:
This was the day we were returning back to Valladolid from Granada. We did one last quick tour around Granada and had free time to get lunch and then we returned home. I did not take any photos that day because the rain was really bad and most of what we saw on that day is in the earlier photos from the 21st March. We arrived back late and so the next day we were very tired.

Hope you are all well and I will write my next blog post to you soon,
Becky