Except what exactly is fine art and what in particular defines it? And should we have a place, perhaps, to store all the ugly art, and its equally hideous artists? It's a mistranslation that we don't dare in English, but do in French and even Spanish. Musee des Beaux-Arts. De Bellas Artes.
Of beautiful art. The sort of art you should be looking at and (preferably) be in awe of. Which isn't to plead the case of purposefully ugly art. In recent years, there's been plenty of that. Mindless attempts at tongue-in-cheek that have left many a molar bruised and none the wiser, unfortunately. I think I'd like to keep a museum with all the banned and banished artists of those older eras. All the people who, besides Velazquez (who is indeed beaux), didn't qualify as worth-remembering artists. To look at some of these great artists, you wouldn't think the bar was set too high - one needed only the ability to paint a half-passable Baby Jesus and he had secured a place in museums like this one. But what about those who didn't like babies or who perhaps found other things more beautiful and worth laboring over? To be fair, how many weepy St. Francis stillframes can you get through before you start losing your marbles?
Not to deride religion. Or the church. We'd be a great deal poorer were it not for the church's generous sponsorships of art throughout the centuries, of course. Buy if you look across the artistic cannon, one can't deny there was a certain homogeny. It makes one wonder about the loose joints and awkward ends. The bits that got cut out of the frame. I would like a museum behind the museum. I would sponsor a place for remembering all those people who, for some fault or another, history didn't deem worth remembering.
Thank goodness I'm on the present starving artist roll-call and haven't the means, eh?
It is, nevertheless, a pretty place, though I preferred as always the inner courtyards to the stuffy, reverent mini-galleries. Though I was quite fond of the Velasquez and El Greco they had on display. And the Murillos. Some. Some I thought were goofy-looking. That's another thing I dislike about modern museum-going. It's automated by a sense of faux reverence. Which still beats the robo-tourists cycling from frame to frame, snapping a picture or (worse) a selfie, then moving on to the next one. But right after them, there's this crowd of people just going about staring up at the pictures for a suitable amount of time (presumably) and giving you a profoundly righteous stink-eye if you giggle or comment.
Why?
Isn't the point of art to be digested and interpreted? I'd argue you're keeping your palate much more sensible to art when you're reacting to individual pieces based on likes and dislikes, artists' strengths and weaknesses, than if you're going round perfectly silent, nodding thoughtfully every once in a while.
You can't tell me you appreciate and adore every single artist, every single style and painting that's come down through the years. And if we don't let art inspire us (in one direction or the other), then really what's the point of museums, at all?
It's a nice place to be, especially out of the rain. And is, according to their website at least, the second-most-important museum in Spain after El Prado. I don't know about that, but at 1.50 Eur a visit, it's well-worth your time. That's all I'm trying to do here really. Be.
