The Museo del Prado

While in Madrid, I visited the Prado only twice.

I am not a museum person. Museum visits for me back home were just part of a class exercise/trip when I was still in school. It was never something I undertook on my own or with friends, except maybe when the Vatican showed some artifacts over at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila around the time Pope John Paul II came to Manila for the World Youth Day. But I digress.

The Prado came highly recommended by friends who've been there even before I left Manila, and it was well worth the visits I made. Entrance is free on weekends. That alone I think would make me spend some Saturday afternoons at the Prado were I a new transplant to Madrid, living, working or studying there, just checking out the paintings whenever I have a Saturday afternoon free 'cause there were just so many of them that one afternoon is not enough to appreciate all that were on show.

scene at the foyer upon entrance

This is the first museum I set foot on in Europe. And being the uncouth, non-museum barbarian that I am, I have since learned my lessone re Europe and their old paintings that I usually only saw in encyclopedias (and in black and white too!) when I was a kid just doing some homework for school.


So one morning, my friend and I set off for the Prado. By this time, I've since known how to get around the Madrid Metro (which, despite how complex its design seems on the Metro map, was not quite difficult to manage after all. Galing!). This is another story though. Once in the museum, I took some pamphlets to help guide me through the areas of the museum. Let's just say they were divided into geographical regions in Europe. Like you have the Italian masters here, the Dutch ones there, the Spanish here, the French there, etc.. Needless to say, the works of the names I used to only read in books or novels before are found here: Van Dyke, Velazquez, Rembrandt, etc.


But one painting stood out for me the most. Or rather struck me the most. Since the other paintings were mostly portraits of royalty or aristocracy with their nature or palatial backdrops or of saints and angels and other religioius icons, this one didn't seem to be and looked like it can pass for a photograph with a solid dark background. One big photo. Honestly. It's called Hombre con laud, and it was by Anton Van Dyke. It's amazing. And it has become my favorite. It looked so real and yet you know it's a painting done by a master. I kept coming back to it and sometimes just couldn't believe it. haha.

Hombre con laud by Anton Van Dyck

a closer look

To describe some of the paintings there would probably require another blog site, not just another blog story, and I don't want to get into that. It was so interesting to experience the difference between seeing such paintings on a book and another in real life. Believe me, I don't think any book can ever convey the visual impact of seeing these paintings in real life. I left the museum marvelling at how it cool it is to know that back during their times that they were able to produce such pieces in the absence of technology as we know and use now.

And then while going around it, I chanced upon some paintings done by Velazquez of the Medici villa in Rome. The Medicis sound familiar. I know they're like this rich merchant family way back then in Italy. But that's just about all I knew of them. And if this painting of their villa is any indication, then it must mean the villa must still be there in Rome. Kept that in mind as Rome was gonna be my last stop before Amsterdam then home.

To say that the Prado is a national treasure is an understatement.