Overwhelmed & Exhausted By Art

Finally, here is the post about my day of museum going...


As I don't go to a lot of museums back home I sometimes forget how really amazing art can tire you. It's not just the walking from gallery to gallery that does it - it's the sheer weight of all the amazing things you've seen. I am in awe of the painters that I saw today, as well as the works that I long thought would be consigned only to art books but now I've stood up close and peered at them. Amazing.
For those who read the previous post (and that better be all of you!) I ended up going to the Thyssen as it was the first one I came across. Ran into some old friends there (Gauguin, Van Gogh, De Witte, Monet) who were wonderful to see as always. Although I am a huge Gauguin fan (I know, wrong country) I was disappointed only because it was his earlier work and I much prefer his Tahitian paintings. Alright, back to the new friends - I'm not sure if I can list everything w/out making this boring so I'll try to hit the highlights: My first in person viewing of a Georgia O'Keefe painting - 2 in particular I kept going back to: Moon in New York & From The Plains II, amazing colours and feelings from those paintings. Anything that I saw by Kirshner I kept coming back to - I know again it's because of the use of colour - I really am a colour junkie; I can appreciate other art and it doesn't all have to be super colourful but those who use it well I just can't help but love them. I also saw this incredible painting called Metropolis - it's huge and has a million different things happening in it, every corner has something to see - it's by George Grosz - it was fantastic.

I literally could go on & on but I also ended up going to the Reina Sofia so I have to talk about that too! Other than getting to see Juan Miro just everwhere! And Dali everywhere you turn - well, they both have their own rooms in the museum of course! There are also a few things by each of them in the Thyssen but at the Reina Sofia there are rooms devoted to them!! It's so wonderful. But of course the main point (at least for me) of going to the Reina Sofia is to see Picasso's Guernica. My high school Spanish teacher had a huge poster of it that took up the entire back wall of our class room and she would tell us about it's history and what made it so powerful (for her at least). Nothing prepares you for seeing it in person - it is so passionate; even in blacks & greys - you can feel the fear and the terror and the little bit of hope that comes through. In the room before it there is a series of photos that were done as Picasso was painting it so you can see the progression, you also get to see preliminary sketches as well as paintings he did as commentaries or compliments to the painting itself. I just stood there staring at it for what seemed like forever. It so far has been the highlight of my trip to Madrid. One more thing about my appreciation of art and the Reina Sofia; just over 19 years ago we went to D.C. to see my aunt Shaiy and on that trip we went to the Smithsonian where I first saw and fell in love with the works of Gauguin. On that same trip we also saw works by Calder who my cousin Amber loves. What is the point of this you ask? At the Reina Sofia in a courtyard is one of Calder's wonderful mobiles - Amber, I took pictures just for you and will post them as soon as I can. To me the two trips are almost like bookends; Gauguin & Calder at both. A fitting end if I see nothing else here in Madrid.