Museo del Prado – A Must-See

On Wednesday afternoon, Jackie and Lindsay and I were signed up to visit the Museo del Prado. The sign-up process is a perfect example of soft paternalism (or something), in which the Self makes a decision that is deemed to be good for the Self, such as visiting a museum and therefore forcing cultural exposure. The process to opt out of this museum visit would require a visit to the IES office, and inevitably having to speak Spanish to someone. Thus the Self does not opt out of the museum visit.

That being said, when it is 3:30 pm and the Self is sleeping like the dead, the Self would give anything to opt out of the museum visit. But the Self cannot opt out because of soft paternalism and is thereby forcibly subjected to a good.

“Get up, Bria,” Lindsay said from my doorway. “We have to be at the museum by 3:45.”

“Mraaahwoka,” I said from underneath my covers.

The Museum del Prado was amazing. I don’t know a lot about art but I do enjoy it. I should have put that in my bio, rather than what is currently up there, which is padded with lies.

My favorite painting is called El Jardín de las Delicias, it is by El Bosco, and it is one of my favorite works, mostly because it is literally crazy. You should Google it and zoom in all the way and see for yourself, or better yet, come to Madrid and look at it in person. Starting from the left, the painting depicts the fall of man, which, as we all know, was completely Eve’s fault. Then in the middle, El Bosco painted earthly and therefore sinful pleasures (you know it’s sinful because everyone is naked). And then on the right is the result of these sinful pleasures: eternal hellfire and destruction.

The detail in this painting is incredible. If you look closely, you can see unicorns, and people getting eaten by monsters and a pig wearing a nun’s habit. Everything about it is awesome. I would get a print for my room, but I don’t want people to know think that I’ve lost my mind.

The last exhibit we visited featured Francisco de Goya, who I’d already learned about due to my surprisingly intensive sophomore year Spanish class. Our guide showed us some of the royal portraits Goya painted, which are pretty boring and not even really worth mentioning. I was holding out for Goya’s pinturas negras, which are creepy, horrible, and nightmare-inducing. Goya painted them at the end of his life when he moved into his ‘Quinta del Sordo,’ or ‘Deaf Man’s House,’ and he was going deaf. Evidently, he was also going insane because he painted paintings like this:

 http://departuredelayed.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/goya_saturn.jpg

all over the walls of his house! I’m sure everyone was really worried about him. That is quite possibly the most upsetting thing I have ever seen.