Reina Sofia (modern art museum) in Madrid

Let's see some culture while we are here in Spain!

I don't know who said that or what the intent was, but from what I hear, there are some great museums here.  We had heard that the modern art museum in Madrid was excellent and more welcoming to children, so off we went!

I thought it was excellent and could have spent the whole day just on the bottom floor, there are three other floors above it as well.  A common thought I've had while here but, I wish I could understand more Spanish because only some of it had English translations.  The bottom floor was about "education", a word with a lot of connotations and implications.  The best parts were the social protests aimed at barbaric or unjust governments.

After that we visited a section that was dedicated to cubism and other modern/postmodern art styles.  I enjoyed it but by the end of the day, the kids were exploding out of their skin.

Yay!  Let's check out some art! (we let them run around in the drizzling rain for a good while in hopes that they would be ready for some quiet time, not sure it worked)

This is a painting by Pablo Picasso called Guernica.  It is one of his more famous works, especially here in his home country of Spain.  It is about the bombing of a village named Guernica in the north of Spain in 1937 by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War.  It is huge,11.5ft by 25.5ft and it is beautiful and humbling.

I thought this placard was interesting and in truth the family kept moving before I could finish reading it so I took a picture.

This is part of the social protest art I think this was from Haiti but... ?

Man I wish I would have taken more pictures of this exhibit.  It was about the struggle for equal rights during the 1960's and 70's.  They had some great pieces in their collection.  I found an interesting parallel between the words chosen in some of those works and those used to describe today's recent events related to the violence against African Americans by police.

This is a wall mural that I found compelling but I was racing to keep up with the family at this point so I can't remember where it was set... Soviet Union maybe?

Juan Gris painting:  Open Window... with my girls proudly posing in front.  I like both the foreground and background.  :-)

Even the halls of the museum were beautiful.

This painting is called "A World" by Spanish artist Angeles Santos Toroella.  It was one of my favorite paintings of the day.

Figure by Salvador Dali

Obviously they thought this painting was hilarious.

The girls thought this picture was silly and so we encouraged silly faces to match!

I loved the hair in this picture in contrast to the strait lines.  It is by Salvador Dali.