El Prado Art Museum

Location:
Calle Ruiz de Alarcón 23
Madrid, Spain

Museum

By Christopher Minster

The greatest art museum in Spain and one of the best in the world, the Prado is a can’t miss Madrid stop for any art aficionado. Even if you’re only vaguely interested in art and art history, the Prado museum will blow you away. Over the last 500 years or so, many of the best artists in the world have come from Spain: Goya, Velázquez, El Greco and Picasso are only a few of the illustrious names of the Spanish masters. The El Prado museum houses many of their best works, as well as classic paintings by other Europeans such as Raphael, Titian and Hieronymus Bosch.

The paintings in the museum are organized more or less chronologically by artistic movement. The earliest art in the museum dates from around the medieval era: the last pieces date from Goya’s time, the early nineteenth century. (If you want to see later paintings, such as those by Picasso, you’ll need to head to the nearby Museo Nacional Reina Sofia).

If you don’t know much about art, the Prado museum has made things easy for you. There are three different walking tours, which will take you to 15, 30, or 50 of the finest paintings in the museum and explain a little bit about each of them. The different routes supposedly take one, two, or three hours to do, but that leaves little time to be distracted by the other magnificent paintings that are not on the tour. It is best to plan a morning or afternoon to fully appreciate the art.

There are roughly 1,000 works of art on display at any moment in the museum, and the museum has a collection of over 8,000 works in storage. Due to high academic demand, it is possible to view all of these online at their official website.

Tastes differ, and everyone who goes to the Prado will have different favourites, but some of the most famous and highly-regarded works generally on display include Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, The 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid: the executions on Principe Pio hill by Francisco de Goya, The Cardinal by Raphael and (my favorite) The Triumph of Death by Brueghel the Elder.  

Getting There
The Prado Museum is conveniently located in downtown Madrid.

Days Closed:Monday

Contact Information:
Zip: Madrid 28014
Phone: 34 91 330 2800
URL: 213.27.146.137/index.php