Visit to the Prado Museum

EL Museo Nacional Del Prado is an art museum located in Madrid, Spain. The museum is the only institution that contains the most largest and most important collection of Spanish artworks in the world. The estimated paintings held inside the museum are beyond 4,800 paintings from the era of the Romanesque to the 19^th century. There are many internationally renowned Spanish art collections, such as more importantly, Zurbaran, Alonso Cano, and Velazquez. Art collections best represented inside the Prado museum are Velazquez and Goya, with around 50 pieces.

One of the two pieces that I observed from the Velazquez was the collection “The adoration of the Magi” which was from his Sevillian phase. Diego Velazquez was born in Seville on June 6, 1599 and an individualistic artist from the Baroque Movement. Many of his pieces, were portraits of the Spanish royal family court, such as “Las Meninas”, which is in English “The Maids of Honours”. Diego Velazquez was the leading artist in the court of King Phillip IV. The “Las Meninas” was a large portrait measuring at 318 cm by 276 cm with oil on canvas, painted between 1656 and 1657. The “Las Meninas” portrait is of the infant Margarita, daughter, of Felipe IV, surrounded my members of her family, and her servants in the hall of Madrid’s Alcazar Palace. The neatest part of the portrait was that he was able to paint his image within the painting and portrait of the family of Philip IV of Spain, “Las Meninas”, and the reflection of the King and his Queen, Felipe IV and Maria de Austria in the mirror in the back of the room.

Francisco de Zurbaran was a Spanish painter and known for his religious depiction paintings. He was born in 1598. One of the paintings that drew my attention was the painting, “Saint Luke as a painter, before Christ on the Cross”.  The portrait at measures 105 cm by 84 cm. The portrait is fascinating because its Zurbaran as Saint Luke, the painter and doctor, standing for Christ on the cross.

 Alonso Cano was born on March 19, 1601 in Granada, Spain. He was a painter, architect, and sculptor. Many of his works consisted of religious movements. The “Virgin and Child”, which measures at 162 by 107 cm, was the most appealing in opinion.  

Other fascinating facts about all three painters are that they were all painters during the Baroque movement and painted for the Spanish Royal family.