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