If you are carried away by art, history, museums and galleries, it is your luck to be in Madrid. Mostly, because of the fact, that Madrid museums embrace a great number of prominent, worldwide known and fabulously rich, collections. It is worth going and enjoying the 10 most Important, art and history galleries and museums. El Prado is a gem among them.
This museum is considered to be the largest art gallery in the world. It exposes not only paintings, but also pieces of other spheres of art: sculpture, numismatics, drawings, etc. But it is just the collection of paintings, which makes El Prado one of most important art galleries in the world.
The pictorial collection numbers 8,600 pieces, but only 2,000 of them are being exposed, because of lack of available room. There are many museums in the world, whose collections have less exhibits exposed, than has El Prado in its storeroom.
If you keen on contemporary art, this museum of Madrid is just for you. It is set in the building of the old General Hospital, raised, according to the, Charles III of Spain order, by the architect Sabatini. In 1977, the building was transformed to a museum.
It is mostly famous for its world – appreciated permanent collection by Picasso, Dali, etc., paintings.
The Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza invites its visitors to an interesting art “time-travel”, starting in the XIII-th, and finishing in the late XX-th century. You will pass through years and years, admiring nearly a thousand of masterpieces, elaborated in various pictorial manners, representing western art schools: Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, Romanticism of the XIX-th – XX-th centuries, and even, art epochs, such as the Renaissance.
The last stop of your travel will be at Pop art, exposed in this museum.
Joaquin Sorolla lived in Valencia and worked in the style of impressionism. His art studio, located in a mansion, has been transformed into a Madrid museum, representing a perfect house from the early XX-th century.
The building, raised 1n 1910 - 1911, remains the same, in spite of its owner death, happened in 1923. The atmosphere of the house is maintained unchangeable by the furniture, the canvas, with the unfinished painting, which was being painted by the master at that moment, and even by the brushes, which he was using.
The painter is famous for various pictorial styles. Nevertheless, his favourite one was the genre art, depicting calm and peaceful the Mediterranean scenes with children and women, on a charmingly lit sea beach.
The origin of the museum, start back to the end of the XIX-th century. The main idea was to dispose there a large collection of separate archaeological, ethnographical exhibits, pieces of decorative art and numismatics, being exposed in various institutions. The collection has been created and functions permanently and offers a fascinating walk along the territory and historic epochs of Spain, from pre-historic times till the XIX-th century.
Moreover, excellent examples of Egyptian mummies and sarcophagi, decorative Hispano-Roman art, stonework and ceramics of Mudéjar style and pieces of Arabian archaeology are also included to the collection. This museum is famous for its scientific library, which consists of art, history, archaeology, museology, etc., publications, as well.
CaixaForum is a complete set of sights, which may attract everybody, for it represents traditional and nowadays reality. It includes historic, modern and contemporary art exhibitions, music and poetry festivals, it carries out presentations of multimedia art and debates on current affairs, it conducts educational and family workshops. Caixa Forum of Madrid gives you the opportunity to visit and participate in all these activities.
It is a cultural centre of the highest level, which has at its disposal the first Spanish vertical garden, including 15-000 plants. The “art triangle”, composed by three Madrid museums: El Prado, the Art Centre Reina Sofia and the Museum Thyssen – Bornemisza, is happily supplemented with Caixa Forum.
The National Museum of Romanticism – the former Museo Romántico, makes its visitors meet hints of real Madrid life of the epoch of Romanticism.
The idea belonged to the founder of this museum, Benigno de la Vega-Inclán, who presented the future cultural institution with his own collection of painting and furniture. The museum came to being in 1924, and has never been closed since then.
Various American cultures are represented in the collection of this museum. Lots of unique pieces of American art display a wide historic panorama of the continent.
One is invited to visit quite a lot of sections, dedicated to pre-Colombian archaeology, colonial ethnography and art, including amazing jewels: Viracocha head and Quimbayas Treasure.
This particular museum dedicates its activity, mostly, to the promotion of natural science knowledge among people. More, than 6 million samples of its collection demonstrate the amazing diversity of the world of natural beings. It is also a centre, which represents not only Spanish fauna, but also other areas, over the Mediterranean sea and soil.
The collection has at its disposal, various permanent expositions, dedicated to the earth life history, represented by fabulous specimens, such as an exact copy of a Diplodocus, o the Stone Garden, which is a collection of rocks and petrified tree trunks, exhibited in the open air, belonging everything to the Mediterranean civilization.
It was Lázaro Galdiano, a dedicated collector, who united all the exhibits of that collection, in order to found a new Madrid museum. Nowadays, the collection numbers 12,600 paintings, sculptures, pieces of jewels (including silver, marble, enamelled items, fabrics, weapons, etc), which dates back to the 6-th century B.C. and comes to the beginning of the XX-th century.
The art gallery is rich for masterpieces by Hieronymus Bosch, Cranach, Reynolds, Constable and other representatives of various European schools.
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