"Madriz" a Madrid Travel Page by bliss7

Madrid, to me, is like New York city, but with Spanish as the language, old giant palaces and churches in place of skyscrapers, and 80's fashion instead of modern style.There is construction and scaffolding everywhere, there are beautiful parks and monuments, a lot of unfriendly people, but also some very friendly people, and some great "hole in the wall" type bars and cafes.

Madrid has some beautiful sights, such as the museos, El Prado y la Reina Sofia.

El Prado contiene unos de las más hermosas pinturas, incluyendo las de Raphael. Uncle Joe was right when he praised Raphael so highly, he told me about the faces - you can tell just what they are thinking - a thought, a feeling, un sentido que palabras no pueden expresar. Es el genio de Raphael. Me tienen encantado, veramente, éstas.

The Reina Sofia houses the world famous masterpiece, Guernica. I could not get over this work. Yeah. Picasso has his own style, pero no pienso que, de técnica, ésta es su mejor. But you can feel - the horrors of war seething through the picture. The look on that horse's face - it is just LOCO. Insane - no idea what's going on, or why - much like those poor Basques when they got bombed 70 years ago. [Too shocked to even think.. in an almost perpetual state of shock.. the mind cannot comprehend such unthinkable horror... so it does not allow itself to accept what has happened, it only reacts in shock!] I returned to see the painting 5 times and heard the audioguía twice. I couldn't stop looking at it!

But then I started getting disturbed. Picasso, and those of his style - they are disturbing. Their genius lies in finding the very essence of their subject - whether it be a concept or emotion or entity - and somehow painting it or sculpting it. They can portray things that only music can describe. But they do it in a way that drives you nuts! By moving around parts of the face, or making them in different shapes, it disturbs the brain. It's not natural and I had to get out of there.

Also in the Reina Sofia, we found a small exhibit on this Mexican artist named Germán Cueto. He was really good. Really pretty Mexican mosaic / colorful influence in a lot of his stuff. Also, I got a strong feeling of the sensus catolicus through his art, which made it even better.