El Prado

Before I go into some of Seville's most famous artists that were represented in the Prado Museum, let me just tell you that the Prado certainly lived up to its reputation as one of the most amazing art museums in the world. It has such a great collection of baroque and contemporary artists, it even had a Rembrandt! Seville turned out many famous artists during its glory days, some of which include Diego Velazquez, Bartolome Murillo, and Fransisco Zurburan.

Diego Velázquez was one of Spain’s leading portrait painters in the court of King Philip IV during the the Baroque period. In addition to many paintings of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

Las Meninas, or the Maids of Honor in English, depicts the oldest daughter of the queen. This is one of the few paintings, if not the first of its kind, where the king and queen are not the subjects of the painting. However, if you look closely, you will notice that they are reflected in the mirror in the back. The point-of-view is a topic of much debate, when I first saw it, I thought that it was from   the point of view of the king and queen looking in at the painting, which is why they were reflected in the mirror in the back, but others think that the subject is the royals themselves, even though they aren’t in the foreground, just as many think that this is just a court painting.

I had gone with the intention of looking for any painting that Velazquez had painted besides this one that I could write about because everyone knows about it, but it’s his masterpiece for a reason and none of his other works could really compare. The colors and the detail are really exquisite, not to mention the expressions of the people in the painting. It is a great work of art.

Bartolomé Murillo one of the most important figures in Baroque painting in Spain. He mostly painted religious works, as was common for the times, but he also painted scenes of everyday life, like portraits, women and children, as well as beggars and flower girls. His paintings show a recording of what common life was like during his time.

Of all his works in the Prado, the "Inmaculada Concepción de los Venerables" was my favorite. This painting features the Virgin Mary sitting on clouds as angels are singing in praise as she ascends into heaven. This called out to me because of the blue color of her robe, and the detail inscribed in them. This is also an example of how each ethnicity pictures the Virgin Mary differently, as Murillo depicts her as tan, as most of the people of Spain are of this coloring.

 The last artist I saw that came from Seville, although there were more, was Francisco Zurbaran, who is famous for his still life, his religious paintings, and his depiction of monks, nuns, and martyrs. Most of his paintings in the museum were of still life,  and as good as they are, technique wise, this style of paintings bore me, as much as it pains me to say it. The painting that I liked was the painting “Hércules lucha con el león de Nemea.” As the name suggests, it shows a nude Hercules battling what appears to be the first of twelve battles that he had to overcome to prove himself to the gods. According to legend, Hercules is nude because he needs to make clothes out of the lion once it is defeated, which is why Zurburan painted him this way. I was actually drawn

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the art in the Prado museum, but what little I did see totally impressed me.