The Spanish Portrait
A little more about the wonderful exhibit at the Prado. Turns out, you can flip through the entire thing on the Prado's website. Of course, looking at a reduced and copied image of a painting is a meager experience, compared to standing in the presence of the real thing. But the charm of that first portrait below shines right through.
She is La Condesa de Vilches (Federico de Madrazo, Museo Nacional del Prado). Imagine how irritated everybody was when Picasso mimicked the style of court portraiture using prostitutes for his subjects: Mujer en azul (Pablo Picasso, Museo Nacional Reina Sofía).
I particularly liked another, rather more subdued Picasso: La Señora Canals (Barcelona, Museu Picasso).
Among the religious subjects was the very impressive Francisco de Zurbarán's Fray Francisco Zúmel (M. de la Real Academia de San Fernando).
But then we rounded a corner and just about fell on the floor when we saw La venerable madre Jerónima de la Fuente (Diego Velázquez, Museo Nacional del Prado). Does she look like she wants to brain you, or what?!?