Afternoon Interlude

Pretty Lavish top
Pretty Lavish skirt
Zara sandals (similar)
Celine handbag
Celine sunglasses
Aurate NY bracelet (c/o)
Linjer rings (c/o)
Pamela Card Jewelry earrings (similar)
Location: Museo Reina Sofia – Madrid, Spain

My love of museums is well-documented, although I don’t think I fully understood how profound it was until I lost access to them temporarily in the pandemic years. My happiest hours, if not spent with a pen in hand and a paper in front of me, or my nose in a book, are always spent wandering a museum. It’s only natural, then, that on our first full day in Madrid, we went straight to one.

The first one we chose wasn’t the famous Prado Museum, but the Reina Sofia Museum. The Reina Sofia is home to a collection of modern art that includes Picasso’s Guernica. The painting, which is staggeringly large in real life, is the main draw for more visitors. And, admittedly, it was high on our list of pieces to see, too. But while I’m glad to be able to say that I did see it, it turned out to be far from what I found most interesting in the museum.

Museums, like life, are full of surprises. What makes them better is that the surprises they hold are almost invariably pleasant, and never result in extra laundry, dishwashing or bill payments (as almost all other adult surprises seem to.) At the Reina Sofia, the artwork dates from 1900 onward. And while that work is international, much of it relates to Spanish history. What does not provides context to illustrate Spain’s place in the world through the past century and a half. I learned more about the legacy of Spanish fascism in our afternoon there than I could have from any book. In a way, the museum allowed us to look through a unique lens and see, for a few hours, how Spain views its own modern history. The perspective proved truly fascinating.

“I am responsible only to God and history.”
– Francisco Franco

Perhaps that quote would sound less abhorrent in context. I don’t know. What I do know is that it speaks volumes that a leader should feel no responsibility towards the people they represent and serve. I imagine it’s that lack of accountability to humanity that allowed Franco to request support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy for the attack on Guernica. The human cost was immaterial. The end, the victory of his nationalist army in the civil war, would justify the means. In many ways, Franco is notably absent from the history on display at the Reina Sofia Museum. The evidence of his years in power is everywhere, not just in Picasso’s famous painting. But the man himself is largely absent.

I imagine that’s by design. And I can’t blame the architect.

But the absence is conspicuous. It was on our afternoon wander through the museum, where we paused in the courtyard to snap these photos, that we first noticed it, but it was not the only time or place where we felt it. Rules, order and conformity are still strongly valued in Madrid, based on our experience. But no one mentions why. I suspect if we’d asked, locals would have preferred not to discuss it. There seems to be a kind of tacit agreement among them all to simply not mention the past as a means to move on from it. What we do not mention does not simply disappear, of course. History does not change, although we can.

And Spain, Madrid included, has, of course, moved on. But in some ways, history continues to inform its present beyond the what museums display. There is far more to be said on this subject than I could learn in a single museum visit. It would be a better subject for an academic paper than a blog post, really.

But here we are – and I bring it up because we noticed the influence of the past on the city immediately when we arrived. History does not view Franco as generously as he viewed himself. And yet, he remains a divisive figure. For forty years, Spanish people, particularly schoolchildren, learned that he’d been sent to save their country from chaos, atheism and poverty. (This, although he seemed to think he owed them nothing.) There are people still living who believe that to be true. And so, perhaps his name goes so often unmentioned as a way to avoid arguments and the opening of old wounds.

I’ve wondered, on occasion, what the world might be like today if life had simply continued to flow along a placid stream through the thirties and forties. World War II changed the trajectory of life in much of the western world, after it ended. We threw out all the old rules and started over again, rejecting almost everything that lead to the appalling cause of that conflict. The post-war period must have been a fascinating period to live through, although the repercussions of some of the misguided but well-intentioned decisions made then continue to be felt today. But what if none of it ever happened?

The possible answer to that hypothetical question, I think, is clearer in Madrid than anywhere else. It’s visible in simple things, like font choices for brand logos. Popular (and populist) styles from the thirties, which have disappeared in the rest of the world, never went away in Spain. Instead, they evolved in isolation. The store logo for El Corte Ingles is an excellent example of that evolution.

This is what makes museums so remarkable, so magical. We spent a few hours wandering through rooms and hallways, looking at art. That’s all it took. What I saw in those hours inspired all of this subsequent thinking and reflection. It changed my perspective on Madrid, and coloured how I saw the city for the rest of the trip.

That a simple afternoon interlude, between morning coffee and lunch, can bring about all of this in my mind is what makes me constantly want more. More travel, more museums, more experiences through which to reframe my own understanding of the world. There’s so much out there that can shift and change how we view life, and in turn, how we move through it. A lot of it lives in museums. Spend an afternoon in one. Any one will do, really; they all have something to offer. I can almost guarantee you won’t be exactly the same person when you leave as you were when you walked in.

One afternoon. One museum. That can be all it takes.

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