Blown Away By Paintings and Their Messages
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It was fun to be with a big jolly group of Americans for just one morning. I didn't mind the fact that our union with them popped my adolescent Spanish bubble. It's always a little shell-shocking when my steady diet of being in the company of young adults is interrupted. It happens each time I come home from college. In this case, I felt the contrast between the hostel crowd and atmosphere I had been immersed in during the past week, and the group of studious adult tour members who ask too many questions. Melting in with a group of Americans takes the edge off of that alienated feeling you have in a foreign country. Usually that alienated feeling is pleasant to me, but a morning with fellow countrypeople can be a comfortable respite from the unfamiliar.
We visited a convent where cloistered nuns sell cookies using a lazy-Susan system so others don't see them and they don't see others. Unfortunately, we didn't get to taste their sweets because it was the Sabbath, the only day they aren't open for business.
Inés joked about leaving Zoe and me behind because the convent really needs more recruits. I am in total awe of women who have enough devotion to God to surrender visual contact with the outside world. I can't even imagine what that would be like. I am selfish and indulgent to the extent that I want to do the very opposite—travel. I want to see everything my external world has to offer and have face-to-face conversations with as many people as possible.
When the sisters reach a certain age, some of them take a time out from being “cloistered;” their teeth get so bad (perhaps from eating too many cookies?), they must go out in public to pay a visit to the dentist.
Zoe and I tagged along with the tour group to the Prado. According to that guidebook by that one travel guy, Steve Rick or whatever his name is, the Prado is “the greatest painting museum in the world.” I had to memorize some of these paintings for my art history exams this past year and it was really cool to see them up close and in person.
My favorite was "Descent of Christ from the Cross," by Rogier van der Weyden. I never understood why Flemish painting was my art history professor's favorite until I saw this masterpiece in the flesh. Could this really be from the early 15th century? I was awestruck by the painter's skill. His rendering was incredibly realistic, with life-like shadows, anatomically perfect hands and feet, lush folds of cloth, and scrupulously detailed vegetation. I imagine those who love art for its technical virtuosity might feel like swooning at the sight of this display of perfection.
I also liked Bosch´s "The Garden of Earthly Delights," a triptych of paradise, sin, and hell. Bosch painted surrealism centuries before the movement even started. He uses vivid imagery and complex meaning to project the message that hedonism and debauchery will surely doom you to hell. The right panel, a horrific depiction of hell, almost makes me want to run back to the convent we visited this morning and become a cloistered nun to avoid Earthly distractions (like all the sex being had in the middle panel) and have better chances at making it to Bosch's stunning paradise.
We left the tour group and went out to lunch with Inés. I still hadn´t tried many tapas, so I jumped at the opportunity to let a Spaniard order for me. Inés and I shared three tapas, the names of which I am not sure, but they were something like octopus with potatoes, peppers with cheese, and potatoes with three sauces. Their preparation of these foods was new to me and they all had great flavor, but did not make for a light meal.
We rushed to Reina Sophía (a modern art museum) and headed straight for Picasso´s "Guernica." Once I saw this masterpiece with my own eyes, I was convinced of all the things I had heard—about how it is the most politically powerful painting of the twentieth century. Picasso didn´t even need the help of color to depict the intensity of the horrors of war. The mother, with her dead baby in arms, cries so hard her eyes slide down her face like tears and her tongue is a knife. It is utter chaos, deformity, loud suffering, unimaginable pain, and hope, all at once. Hope is found in the little flower and the woman, who resembles Picasso´s lover, holding a light.
— Jackie
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You are reading "Blown Away By Paintings and Their Messages", an entry posted on 17 July 2009 by Jackie Steves.
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