The Madrid museum series - Reina Sofia
The various museums I visited in Madrid differ from each other, in their themes and time periods. Like
the Prado contains paintings all the way to the 1800s, while the Reina Sofia focuses on modern art. It is a good thing that I read about Reina before going, so I knew what to expect. Else, given its name, I would have expected to see the royal collection of paintings, with Christian themes. And it had nothing close to that at all! The museum owns more than 23 thousand pieces of photographs and paintings. And they are all modern art, from the 1900s onwards.
The museum is huge, covering 4 floors plus an extension. It was constructed initially to be used as a hospital but ended up being used as a museum. So its architecture resembles a hospital more than a museum still. All around are corridors lined with rooms where the paintings are housed, far away from each other. And in the middle of the building is a garden which can be seen from the corridors. I had visited the museum in the evening from 7-9 pm on an autumn day. Given the abstract themes of the paintings, the modern music that was playing and the setting of the hospital, it all looked very eerie whenever there were no people around.
When I visited the museum, it had a very long queue of people wanting to get in. Given it was lockdown time, we all had to make a booking beforehand, even to go during the free hours. But once inside, everyone vanished and the museum felt largely empty with limited people around.
At that time, there were 3 different art displays across the floors:
There were some 10 rooms on the floor which I visited to see the exhibition. The highlights on the floor were paintings by Dali, Gris, Muro and Picasso. The styles covered cubism, surrealism, expressionism and some photographs of the Spanish civil war. And all these themes were mixed up across the rooms.
My two favourite paintings from the day were not abstract or modern at all (unsurprisingly). The first was this Sorolla one - Return from Fishing. It may have been the only normal, happy and bright painting in the entire museum and I was naturally drawn towards it. It looked very realistic, as if the people would just emerge from the canvas then and there. And I loved it! This painting also encouraged me to visit the Sorolla museum later on.
The other favourite was a painting surprisingly by Dali - Girl at the Window. It was completely different from most of his other paintings in the same museum, but it still had his signature touch. Of brush strokes merging into each other and depicting reality. The painting again drew me to it, and standing there you could almost feel the breeze come through the window and cool your face. This painting also was a good example of the fact that a genius artist will always be a genius, irrespective of the medium. Someone more known for his surrealist and abstract paintings could do well even on representational themes.
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| Corridors of Reina Sofia |
When I visited the museum, it had a very long queue of people wanting to get in. Given it was lockdown time, we all had to make a booking beforehand, even to go during the free hours. But once inside, everyone vanished and the museum felt largely empty with limited people around.
At that time, there were 3 different art displays across the floors:
- Eruption of the 20th century, utopias and conflicts (1900-1945)
- Is art over - Art in a divided world (45-68)
- Revolt to post modernity (62-82)
There were some 10 rooms on the floor which I visited to see the exhibition. The highlights on the floor were paintings by Dali, Gris, Muro and Picasso. The styles covered cubism, surrealism, expressionism and some photographs of the Spanish civil war. And all these themes were mixed up across the rooms.
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| Joaquin Sorolla - Return from Fishing (1899) |
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| Salvador Dali - Girl at the Window (1925) |
There was a separate exhibition spread over many different rooms around room 205, all of which focused on paintings and photographs covering the Spanish Civil War, with the Guernica being the centre piece. The Guernica is a huge mural, 3.5 by 7.5 metres, painted in black, white and gray depicting the destruction to women, children and animals during the cruel bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, by the Germans before the world war. It was a very vocal stand taken by Picasso at that time (1937) and brought world attention to the Spanish Civil War at that time.
It is quite an impactful and hard-hitting painting, showcasing the pain and destruction the bombing would have caused. And the painting makes you stop and think. It is one of those pieces where you can sit and stare for hours, immersing yourself even more and more in the emotions emanating from it. I was definitely moved.
In the rooms around the Guernica, there are small paintings on the wall which show how Picasso had planned for the painting, all the practice sketches he had made over a month before starting the main piece. I think for me it highlighted the fact that painters practice and make a lot of effort before starting the final pieces. Sometimes on the outside, it appears that painters just pick up their brushes and make their masterpieces. But that's generally not the case. There is a lot of time, effort and thought that goes into making each of them.
In the other rooms nearby, there were some other photographs taken during the war and some paintings which stood out. We weren't allowed to take photographs of those but I remember they were hard hitting and made a strong point of what they wanted to say.
The rest of the paintings in the museum were very different (and difficult for me) to fathom, and some felt outright scary. I think I just walked past most of them. Notable among them were the surrealism ones. The many paintings by Dali do draw you to them, with their confusion and clarity. They look crazy at first but then start to make sense, a bit at least. I took a few photos of those to understand them later. As it is not possible to understand them completely till you read about them. Also in the surrealism rooms, there was some weird abstract music playing which may have been part of the same theme but I didn't understand it much. So most the museum did not make sense for me.
There were a few rooms (208-210) with mostly expressionism and cubism paintings. Picasso and Gris were the popular painters here. I think for each of these, you need to figure out what they are trying to say and that takes time. It is tough to understand this in the first go. It is just too complicated initially. There were many paintings by Picasso here but as I said, I didn't get them too well and wasn't as impressed. I did however like this piece by Leger - Still Life with Lamp. It did make some sense to me when I focused on it. I could make out some of the lampshades and parts of the table.
There were a lot of other paintings in the rooms which weren't from famous artists but still I liked. Mostly it was the colours and the simple style which caught my eye. I almost felt like a child who gets drawn by simple things, when all around things are too complicated 😊. Like this one, by Gaya - Two Women. It looks like made in pencil and I found that very striking. Simple. And likeable.
Miro was another popular artist in the surrealism rooms. However, the painting I liked of his wasn't in the same theme - The House with Palm Tree. It was a very simple painting of a house but it was very striking, with its simplicity and starkness.
It is quite an impactful and hard-hitting painting, showcasing the pain and destruction the bombing would have caused. And the painting makes you stop and think. It is one of those pieces where you can sit and stare for hours, immersing yourself even more and more in the emotions emanating from it. I was definitely moved.
In the rooms around the Guernica, there are small paintings on the wall which show how Picasso had planned for the painting, all the practice sketches he had made over a month before starting the main piece. I think for me it highlighted the fact that painters practice and make a lot of effort before starting the final pieces. Sometimes on the outside, it appears that painters just pick up their brushes and make their masterpieces. But that's generally not the case. There is a lot of time, effort and thought that goes into making each of them.
In the other rooms nearby, there were some other photographs taken during the war and some paintings which stood out. We weren't allowed to take photographs of those but I remember they were hard hitting and made a strong point of what they wanted to say.
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| Dali - Memory of the Child Woman |
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| Fernand Leger - Still Life with Lamp (1914) |
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| Ramon Gaya - Two Women (1928) |
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| Joan Miro - House with Palm Tree (1918) |
Overall, I liked this visit to the Reina Sofia, but I don't see myself going back unless I read more and learn how to appreciate these different kind of modern art styles. As without that understanding, it is very easy to walk around without really appreciating what you are seeing.
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