During your confinement time, you’ve probably already completed many of the plans you’ve seen on or off the internet: bread and cake making, virtual yoga classes, teleconferencing or video gaming with family members far away, tidying up the closet and lots more things.
So if you’ve already crossed these things off your to-do list, or if you fancy a different kind of activity, here are some ideas to help you broaden your knowledge of Spanish art and get to know some of our leading museums first-hand.
How about viewing Velázquez’s Las Meninas or inspecting Picasso’s Guernica without leaving your sofa? It’s possible right now, thanks to Spanish museums such as El Prado or Reina Sofía having opened their doors through their web pages.
The Prado Museum
Through the museum’s website at www.museodelprado.es/en you have online access to over 8,000 works making up the collection of Spain’s leading art museum. You can visit online through any of the 9 sections (Museo del Prado, historical context, architecture, music, painting, science, performing arts, philosophy and literature), allowing you to discover all your favourite works of art and understand the context in which they were created.
In addition, for the kids, the Infanta Margarita, one of the girls in Las Meninas, talks to the children to tell them what they can see in the museum. And it’s actually some of the people in the paintings who comment on the paintings – great fun!
The Thyssen Museum
The Thyssen Museum can also come into your very own home, because they give a virtual tour at www.museothyssen.org you where you can discover their entire permanent collection. Also available is a tour of the temporary exhibition “Rembrandt and the portrait of Amsterdam, 1590-1670”, which, for the first time in Spain, unveils an exhibition dedicated to the Dutch painter’s portraitist facet.
And if you’re lucky enough to have virtual reality glasses at home, the Thyssen museum offers a series of total immersion virtual tours of some of their temporary exhibitions. Don’t miss out on this!
The Reina Sofia Museum
You’ve got an essential date with Spanish art here, discovering Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, which is held at the Reina Sofía Museum, all ready for a virtual visit. But remember, in addition to this undisputed protagonist of the museum, a virtual visit to the Reina Sofía (www.museoreinasofia.es/en) gives you the chance to view over 11,000 other great works of art.
And don’t miss the temporary exhibitions, because they only stay for a short while at the museum, so otherwise you might not be able to see these works. If you visit the publications page, there are quite a few works of art that you can download. In the interview section, you can find interesting conversations with some of the artists exhibiting here.
If you’re really interested in Picasso’s famous Guernica, don’t miss the section called “Rethinking Guernica”. Here you can find unpublished documents, images, technical comparisons and lots more. A huge amount of contents that will help you understand one of the most important works by the painter from Málaga.
