[Leica] IMG: a day in Madrid

[Nathan Wajsman]

On Friday I spent the day in Madrid, out on the 7:14 train, home on the 21:15 train, giving me just about 12 hours to walk around Madrid. The main purpose was to visit an exhibition of 17th century Dutch and Spanish paintings at the Prado, consisting of 72 works from Prado’s own collection, supplemented with loans from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and other Dutch museums. The idea was to highlight the remarkable similarity between Dutch and Spanish painters, even in cases where they had never met nor seen each other’s paintings, such a Vermeer and Velázquez. Art historians have traditionally emphasized the uniqueness of Dutch painting following the establishment of the Netherlands as an independent state in 1648. This exhibition puts paid to that idea.

In addition, the PhotoEspaña photography festival is currently going on, with interesting photo exhibitions all over Madrid. I had chosen four exhibitions to visit, but two of them were at the Casa de América which turned out to be closed for vacation, so I had to make do with two. But one of them was a real gem, a very complete exhibition of works by Berenice Abbott. I was not really familiar with her work until now—she was truly a remarkable woman and photographer.

And of course I walked around the city a lot, taking lunch at the Mercado de San Miguel near Plaza Mayor, and spending an hour in the Parque del Buen Retiro, probably the nicest park in any big city. Think of it as Central Park but with a couple of art galleries, numerous bars and lots of beautiful fountains.

August is actually a great month to visit Madrid; it can be hot, sure, but on the other hand half of Madrid’s population is at the seaside (many in Alicante where I live), traffic is light, so the air is clean, and the metro is uncrowded.

Fifty-five images are here:

http://www.frozenlight.eu/madrid_aug2019/index.html

And as always, comments and critique are welcome and appreciated.

Nathan

Nathan Wajsman

Alicante, Spain
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YNWA