A Despatch from Madrid

After ten days in Morocco, we and two friends left the group and flew from Marrakech to Madrid. Both cities have magnificent airports. It has been many decades since I was in either city, and I was taken aback by the beauty and efficiency of their new airports.

Madrid is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The public spaces are gorgeous, the streets and sidewalks are clean, the parks and gardens are well-tended, the city is vibrant and joyous.

Our group of four stayed in a charming, old-fashioned hotel near the city center. On the first night, we had dinner at the hotel.

The next day, we went to the most important museum in Spain: the Prado. It was a 15-minute walk from our hotel. We joined a guided tour and saw the highlights of the museum. My favorite was and is Bosch’s lurid, frightening, spell-binding “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” It’s a massive piece, painted on three panels. I can’t begin to describe it except to say that some art historians call it “The Garden of Lust.”

We saw paintings by Goya, Velasquez, El Greco, Titian, Rubens, Tintoretto, and many more of the world’s greatest artists. Visitors are not allowed to take pictures, so I can’t share what we saw. It is one of the greatest museums in the world, with a breathtaking colllection of old masters.

That night, we decided to dine at a highly recommended tapas bar, Bodega de la Ardosa. Most locals don’t dine until 8 or 9 pm, so we got there early–about 6 pm–and had no problem getting in and finding bar stools.

An unexpected surprise: the street–a quiet back street–was filled with video gear and tents and busy young people. We immediately recognized that they were filming a movie. At the center of the busy on-street set was Woody Allen. He is now 90 years old and still working.

We had a delightful meal, seated in the front window, where we could watch the action on the street.

The next day, we visited the Sophia Reina Museum, only a few blocks from the Prado. The masterpiece of their collection is Picasso’s “Guernica.” It is a gut-wrenching depiction of the Spanish Civil War, which was a prelude to World War II. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest anti-war paintings.

That night, we had another surprise. About 10 pm, we heard a lot of noise outside the hotel, on the Gran Via. We looked out the hotel window, and there on the street was a large number of people chanting and marching. It was a protest march of students, teachers, and parents, protesting the underfunding of the schools.

The next day, we went to the Thyssen Museum, in close proximity to the other two. We saw wonderful 19th and 20th century art.

Here are some examples:

We felt as if we could reach in and touch the water.

We loved this painting by Egon Schiele, called “Houses on the River (The Old Town)” 1914

Edvard Munch, “Bay with Boat and House,” painted in 1881.

Romare Bearden, “Sunday After Sermon,” 1969.

Having gone through this part of the museum’s collection, we moved on to the very large exhibition of the works of Salvador Dali. From my youth, I remember Dali has a showman with a fantastical pencil-thin mustache that pointed straight upward on both sides of his nose. He was a surrealist, and his works were utterly non-realistic. I learned from the show that Dali was obsessed with Freud and was convinced that his art was the visual exprrsssdion of Freud’s theories about dreams, sex, and violence.

I took many photographs but will post only a few here. By the end of the show, I had a very negative reaction to his work. He was an expert artist, but he fell in love with his absurd representations. Many of them seemed cynical, and I had a strong feeling of repulsion towards the way he expressed his artistic gifts.

That was a lot to take in in one day. Over my lifetime, I tried to stay au courant, trying to see the ingenuity and beauty in the new work as it evolved. Yet now, I sped past the modern “masters” because so much of their work seemed shallow. How much talent does it take to paint straight lines that enclose boxes of different colors? Or to spatter paint on a canvas?

I found myself more in love with the work of the masters than the work of the modernists. Some of the latter looked like cartoons. I found greater talent in the realistic portrayals of some works from the 16th century than modernists of the past century. Or maybe I’m a fuddy–duddy.

To my eyes, Hieronymus Bosch is more modern, more powerful, more worthy of close study than some of our modern masters. He speaks to our fears and fantasies, in whatever era.

Friday night was our last night in Madrid. The hotel recommended a bodega around the corner, and we went there. It is called Vinitus. It’s almost a fast food bodega, but the food was not pre-cooked or mass-produced. We had shrimp croquettes, Iberian acorn-fed ham (incredible!), razor clams, a slice of beef loin topped with foie gras, grilled leeks, fried zucchini. The price was reasonable, and the food was excellent.

As soon as I recover, I’m finding an Italian specialty shop where I can buy that amazing Iberian ham.

We got home late Saturday.

I am grateful for two weeks of respite from the Great Orange Menace. I am eager for the mid-terms to be over, keeping my fingers crossed for good luck and good news.

Trump likes to say that our country was a laughing stock in the eyes of the world until he took over in January 2025. That’s a bald-faced lie. Right before the 2024 election, The Economist magazine said that the U.S. economy was “the envy of the world.”

Not any more. Trump is an international laughing stock.

Early voting started in New York on October 24. That’s job #1 for now. Get out and vote. Bring back sanity, competence, compassion, and social responsibility!