picasso, dali, and bug porn

My second day in spain was a day full of art museums and a trip to the royal palace. It was all incredible and I now have a new found love of art museums. We first had a tour around the museo del prado, which is full of classic art work from the 16h century up until the 18th century. We learned about Greco who was very radical for his time in the 16th and 17th century in spain, he painted more realistic portraits of people and was not trying to pain perfectly proportioned bodies and faces, he was famous for painting people with elongated bodies and smaller heads.

This is one of my favorite Greco paintings:

This painting is in a famous chuch in Toledo and was not in the prado, but our tour guide told us the whole history behind the painting and how it told the story of the lord's death. The details of the painting were so precise and each person, even the audience of angels in the background, had a purpose and was usually a political or spiritual figure in that time. Being in the presence of it was really gratifying, it was truly beautiful and spiritual.

A few friends and I also went to the Reina Sofia museum which was really fun, random, and modern. Definitely my favorite museum and I would love to go back and get a tour of it. We saw Picasso's famous painting of Guernica which was also really incredible in person. All of Picasso's painting were absolutely amazing and made me really want to know what was going on inside his head when he was painting. The weirdest part of this museum was definitely the bug porn. (I mean, obviously it would be the weirdest part of any museum.) There was a film about two married beetles and a cricket, the girl beetle was having an affair with the cricket, the cricket was a painter and one day he painted the Mrs. Beetle in a "titanic style" on the couch, then Mr. Beetle came in and Mr. Cricket ran up the chimney and escaped but left the picture, then the Mr. Beetle came home, saw the picture and was very angry with his wife and they started yelling at each other. Mr. Cricket then realized he forgot his special Picasso styled hat at the beetle's place! So he went back to their place and Mr. Beetle hit him in the head with his painting and knocked him out while breaking the painting, then the Beetle's stopped fighting, Mr Cricket went home, and Mr. Beetle eventually forgave his wife and took her out to dinner and a movie. The end. The film took about 20 minutes and we watched it all just in awe of the fact that someone would come up with the idea of this animated film, carry it out with an old fashioned movie wheel, and then call it art. What a masterpiece. PS: I also secretly snapped a picture of this picasso painting!!(well secretly before a woman yelled at me in spanish to put my camera away, but hey i saw a few other people taking pics too.)