Travels to Spain - Madrid, Part III

The city center of Madrid is not very large and it is easy to walk from one place to another. Puerta del Sol is literally the center of the city, and Kilometer Zero, the center of Spain’s road network, is located right here. Puerta del Sol means Gateway of the Sun and it is most certainly well lit and is one of the busiest places in the city; however it is no longer a city gate.

There are a lot of shops and cafés, El Corte Ingles has three locations right here: one sells clothes, another electronic equipment, and the third sells books.

Eight streets start here and come off like rays from the Puerta in different directions. The Puerta used to have a square shape, but now is shaped like a semicircle.

The building on the left-hand side is now occupied by the Comunidad de Madrid. It was built to be a post office in the 18th century, but was transformed into the Ministry of the Interior in the 19th century. During Franco’s time, this was the most dreaded building in the city where if someone was taken here, they would never see their families again. The square has seen wars, assassinations, an uprising against Napoleon’s troops in 1808, proclamations of the republic, good and bad, but now it’s just a large shopping center in the heart of Madrid.

Also, this is the favorite place for people to meet -- under the statue of a bear muzzling a strawberry tree.

Puerta del Sol also becomes similar to Times Square on New Year’s Eve, when people wait on the square for the clock in the clock tower to strike 12, and at each strike they swallow a grape, which is supposed to bring good year.

Madrid has a lot of architectural styles and Plaza Mayor is one of the bright representatives of Madrid of the Hapsburgs (de los Austrias as they are called in Spanish) -– the Spanish variation of Italian Renaissance. Other examples of Madrid of the Hapsburgs can be seen in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales, the Bridge of Segovia, Town Hall, Palace of Buen Retiro, Palacio de Santa Cruz, and the Convent of La Encarnacion to name just a few.

This large and beautiful plaza was built by Gomez de la Mora and Juan Bautista Crescendi in 1619 in just two years. Every large city in this part of Spain has a Plaza Mayor; in most of them, this is the place of produce market in the morning hours. In Madrid, however, the market (Mercado de San Miguel) is two blocks away on Calle Mayor, and Plaza Mayor is a large rectangular square that holds cafés and shops, the information office, and a statue of Felipe III on a horse (he ordered the building of the square).

It was supposed to be a place of bullfights, executions, trials, and public events where crowds would cheer for the king and queen, and even though bullfights never took place here, the executions did. The arched entrances of buildings on the first floor and balconies on the second, and the most notable Casa de la Panaderia (it used to be a bakery in the 16th century) with frescoes on its walls make this plaza almost surreal in this now very modern city and remind us of the city history through the centuries of various Spanish rulers.

The building was originally built in 1781 for Carlos III by Francesco Sabatini as a General Hospital. In 1978, the building was declared a cultural monument and, in 1988, the museum was inaugurated. It bears the name of the current Spanish queen, Queen Sofia, wife of Juan Carlos I. The two glass elevators were added in 1990.

The main collection is on the 2nd and 4th floors. The museum boasts a large collection of paintings of modern Spanish art. On the 2nd floor, the collection is organized in a circle where you start in the beginning of the 20th century with Spanish impressionists (Rusinol, Mir), move on to the beginnings of avant-garde (with works of Blanchard, Leger, Delaunay, Lipchitz), then switch to Gris, who single-handedly started cubism movement. Here you can also see works of forged iron by Pablo Gargallo. His amazing creations -– a portrait of Greta Garbo and the Great Prophet –- make you wonder how he managed to make iron look so alive, light, and delicate. Reina Sofia has an amazing collection of Picasso’s paintings that cover several periods of his life, however, the most haunting painting on display here is obviously Picasso’s "Guernica," which very clearly shows Picasso’s civil position with regard to war and public suffering. Guernica was a village in the Basque country (not far from Bilbao) that was bombed in 1937 by Germans. Wolf-like grin of the war, people that helplessly look for the end of it all, trying to reach that light that brings with it the deliverance from that unbearable suffering. The painting has basically two colors: white=light, black=death. The idea is very clear –- hope for the peace and life without explosions, murders, or wars.

Next we switch gears to surrealism and encounter paintings by Miro, Dali, Kandinsky, Calder, Ernst, Tanguy, and Magritte. The rest of the floor is devoted to the Spanish art of the 1920s and 1930s, the most noted works here are paintings by Benjamin Palencia and sculptures by Alberto Sanchez, one of which is right outside of the entrance to the museum. The collection on the 4th floor is of more modern works. The most famous name here is probably Antoni Tapies, whose art can also be seen in Barcelona.

Continued in Part I

Telephone: 91 467 50 62.
Open Mon, Wed-Sat 10am–9pm; Sun 10am–2:30pm. Closed on Tuesdays, Jan 1, Dec 24, 25, 31.

Prices: 3.01€ – adults
Free on Sundays, Saturdays 2:30 pm–9 pm, May 18, Oct 12, and Dec 6.

Centro de Arte Reina Sofia

Continued from Part I

There is also a temporary exhibit of Russian avant-garde on the 3rd floor (through May 5): 350 book illustrations from 1910-1934 from the MOMA collection. To get here, you need to take the elevator near the Biblioteca (library). This exhibit includes book illustrations of El Lissitsky, Natalia Gontcharova, Marc Chagall, Kasimir Malevich, and others. This is a very unique exhibit because it brings us into the world of 1910-1930s in Russia when Malevich made illustrations to the books of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and others. Here you can also see some of the Yiddish books published during that period with illustrations by El Lissitsky and March Chagall -- these books had very few copies (some 75, some 500) and therefore, are extremely rare. It is also interesting to see the comparison of Russian constructivism as part of this collection to Swiss constructivism of that time (which is shown next door).

This is a rather large and apparently very important museum in Madrid. The building dates back to the 18th century and is in baroque style. Goya was once a director of this academy and such painters as Dali and Picasso were taught here. The collection begins on the first floor where you can see large tapestries and benches with letters "RABA" on them. The first floor has a large collection of works by Mengs, Van Loo, Batoni, Rafael, Titian, Fragonard, Andres de la Calleja, Zurbaran, El Greco, Morales, Ribera, Reni, Murillo, Rubens, Van Dyck, and three rooms of Goya’s paintings. The second floor has paintings by Velazquez, Indian and Egyptian art, Spanish impressionists: Sorolla, Torres, Vazquez, Arenadno, Rico, de Haes, Gato de Lema, and Spanish modern: Picasso, Gris. Unfortunately, several rooms on both floors are closed because of lack of staff. We asked them to open several rooms for us, but they refused. Better luck next time!

This building also houses Prints Institute where there is a very interesting collection of Giovanni Batista Piranesi’s lithographs, and another temporary exhibit "Westmoreland: Memories of the Grand Tour" that shows the diaries, paintings and sculptures brought back from the expedition of the Westmorland, which was an English ship with 26 canons, that brought a collection of paintings and sculptures back with it from its travels through Europe. This collection was bought by Carlos III and given to the museum in 1783-84.

Telephone: 91 532 15 46.
Open: Tues-Fri 9am–7pm, Sat-Mon 9am–2:30pm.
Prices: 2.40€ – adults, 1.20€ – students, free Sat and Sun.