Museums of Spain

Las Meninas (1656), Velázquez

I'm anxious to explore Madrid and Barcelona, Spain for the architecture, history, scenery, and of course the art museums. The Museo del Prado in Madrid would be the first place I'd like to visit. I am interested in the works of El Greco, Velázquez, and Goya, and as a bonus: Titian, Van Dyck and Rembrandt. It's always a welcomed surprise to find a Rembrandt! In 1656, as part of the royal court of King Philip IV in the Spanish Golden Age, Diego Velázquez painted his iconic Las Meninas. In the group portrait, images of the King and Queen are reflected in a mirror, while the Queen's attendant, José Nieto pulls back the curtain to let more light into the room through the doorway. Édouard Manet admired Velázquez as Painter of the Painters.

Assumption of the Virgin
(1515-18), Titian

Assumption of the Virgin
(1577-79), El Greco

Unfortunately, I missed the Prado exhibition that ended in June 2025 displaying El Greco's (Greek artist born Doménikos Theotokópoulos) Assumption of the Virgin. It resembles Titian's earlier Assumption of 1515-18.

Dogs on a Leash (1775), Goya

Another 'Assumption' painter is Francisco Goya, who, besides painting religious panels, also painted this portrait of two dogs on a leash. It's disturbing to see them chained together, as if being enslaved by the unseen hunter. The detail reminds me of the portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds, famous for being the President and founding member of the British Royal Academy.

Modern and Contemporary Painters

The Elephants (1948), Dali

Other artists I would encounter are modern artists such as Dali, Picasso, and Miró. Salvador Dali has museums in Barcelona and Figueres (his hometown), Spain and St Petersburg, Florida. His works are also featured at the Prado in Madrid. When I teach art to elementary school students, I often use Dali's Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) as an example of surrealism. Later, he conceived of this more futuristic version of gigantic elephants.

Robots of Star Wars

Makes you wonder if Steven Spielberg was a fan of Salvador Dali's dreamt up pachyderm-like figures.

Guernica (1937), Picasso

Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró works are also exhibited at the Prado. Picasso's Guernica was returned to the Museo Reina Sofía in Spain in 1981. It depicts the bombing of a town in the Basque country in Northern Spain in 1937 by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

House with the Palm Tree (1918), Miró 

Born in Barcelona, Catalan Surrealist Joan Miró's paintings may be found in multiple Spanish museums and galleries. While The Farm (1921-22) may be seen in Washington D.C., you'll have to visit the Museo Reina Sofía to admire the earlier House with the Palm Tree (1918).

Harlequin with a Mirror
(1923), Picasso

While in Madrid, you may also want to explore the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. An exhibit of Warhol and Pollock artwork will be there until January 2026, with Picasso and Klee paintings through February 2026. I will surely miss those!  Harlequin with Mirror (1923) and Bullfight (1934) are apparently part of the museum's permanent collection, though the website says, 'not exhibited'. I guess you'll have to go there and see!

View onto a Square (1912), Klee

This rather primitive landscape by Swiss German artist Paul Klee is at Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. As you may have guessed it is chalk and crayon on paper and mounted on cardboard. He used gouache, an opaque, watercolor paint thickened with a glue-like substance. I can envision an art project for kindergarten thru 3rd grade students, using crayon or oil pastels to resist washes of watercolor paint, that would surely not intimidate the young artists.

After visiting France and Italy in 2011, the UK in 2017, and cruising the Baltics in 2019, I was able to check off several of the 14 must-see museums from my bucket list. The Prado is next! And, if I make it back to Florida, I will not miss the Dali Museum!!

Making Connections with Artists & Animals

The Old Guitarist (1903-4), Picasso

Many of my posts connect art elements and principles to the artists and movements that were inspired by them. Two websites that I recently visited argue that an artist's fame comes from the connections they made with other artists rather than from their own creativity:

Study Finds Artists Become Famous through Their Friends, Not the Originality of Their Work and

Artists Can Become Famous Through Connections and Not Their Creativity

I like to look for famous artwork in movies and on TV. Picasso's The Old Guitarist frequently appears in episodes of Bewitched, which I watch repeatedly in reruns. It was hung rotated 90 degrees to the right to fit over the Stephens' fireplace. The Cleavers' front door on Leave it to Beaver is flanked by Sir Thomas Lawrence's Pinkie (1794) and Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy (1770). Officers Row on Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA even displayed this pair (in needlepoint) in the dining room of one of the houses we rented there. I hadn't connected the two Thomas's.

Here are three Picasso-style animal portraits. The Lab on the left may actually resemble Cubist artwork by Georges Braque.

          

One of my posts identifies the Fathers of Art Movements and further mentions the social network of member artists who shared similar visions that inspired their own unique styles and interpretations. Picasso developed his style by admiring African sculpture, particularly traditional African masks and ancient Egyptian art, as well as Iberian sculpture. He was influenced by the art of Paul Klee, as well as French painters Paul Cézanne and Eugène Delacroix.

Las Meninas (1957), Picasso

In 10 Quotes from Famous Artists - My Own Interpretation, Picasso is quoted as saying, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." In 1957, Picasso rescued a dachshund named Lump who had been diagnosed with a spinal condition. He lived 10 years longer than expected and died 10 days before his master. Picasso featured Lump as the dog in his recreation of Diego Velázquez' Las Meninas (1656).

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and Gustav Klimt were all influenced by Japanese art. Van Gogh's interpretations can be seen hanging on the walls of his bedroom in his own paintings. His "The Angelus (After Millet)" is almost a direct copy of Jean-François Millet's painting but with his own color scheme.

Head of a Dog (1882), Monet

Claude Monet's garden is famous for its Japanese footbridge, which is prominent in his Waterlilies series. We visited his garden in Giverny, France in May 2011 on our trip to France and Italy. Monet was influenced by Manet, Boudin, Hokusai and Jongkind. Monet also painted animals, such as the domesticated turkeys I mentioned in my recent Thanksgiving Artwork post. He even painted a dog's head.

Doge Andrea Gritti (c1545), Titian

Continuing with Japanese connections, there is an Internet meme called doge which first appeared in 2013 and is based on a Japanese Shiba Inu dog named Kabosu. The word doge actually refers to an Italian magistrate from Venice or Genoa, dating back to the 16th century. It is also a word that is popular in the game of Scrabble. My daughter recently returned from a visit to Italy that included Venice. Her Korean village dog is a rescue that she originally thought was a Shiba Inu. 

One of my colleagues at Paws with Cause creates whimsical portraits of shelter animals dressed in regal attire. I love this portrait of Pepe the Dog. Pepe would qualify as the Doge of his animal shelter. While my friend and fellow resident artist is not famous, she is certainly creative!

Lady with an Ermine (c1490), da Vinci

The next artist on the mindshare index of famous artists is Leonardo da Vinci. He was influenced by Lorenzo de Medici, John Argyropoulos and Andrea del Verrocchio. I like how his Mona Lisa (1503) has been called a counterpart to Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) -- a.k.a. "the Mona Lisa of the North." I like his unusual Lady with an Ermine (c1490). The ermine (similar to a ferret) is a member of the family Mustelidae. The Washington Ferret Rescue and Shelter in Kirkland, WA  has ~150 ferrets looking to be adopted as fur-ever pets. While they aren't currently supported by Paws with Cause, they certainly seem worthy of support. I wish I had a ferret portrait to show you!

Le Civilisateur (1946), Magritte

The next artist on the list is Surrealist Salvador Dali, who was influenced by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Joan Miró. Dali often included animals in his dreamlike paintings and has been photographed walking his anteater and petting his ocelot (See Surrealists and Their Pets.). Magritte's portrait of his pet Pomeranian-Spitz, fetched €489,000 in March 2018. Just think of the shelter pets we could support with that kind of Euro!

Kachina, le Chien de Peggy Guggenheim (1946), Ernst

Max Ernst's portrait of his Pekingese, Kachina looks more like a lioness of grand scale in this Hopi landscape. Apparently, he had lived with American art collector Peggy Guggenheim (her dog?) before marrying American artist Dorothea Tanning.

Valse bleue (1954), Tanning

Tanning also painted an oversized Kachina in her Blue Waltz later in 1954. The painting is certainly surreal and the color scheme reminds me of paintings of couples by Marc Chagall. Some websites defined Kachina as a Lhasa Apso Terrier, rather than a Pekingese, which suits the lion reference better.

Le chat aux poissons rouges
(1914), Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was influenced by Asian and African art, Post-Impressionists Gauguin, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, and his Mentor, Camille Pissarro. He was also a lover of animals, mainly cats, dogs, and doves. See The Friday Art Cat for Matisse's Interior with Goldfish (1914) and a second Etsy version by Deborah Julian where she adds Matisse's two cats -- Minouche and Coussi, or a black cat named la Puce (the flea). Here is his The Cat with Red Fish. I love these happy paintings. This one is reminiscent of others painted in the same room with the red printed wallpaper and window to the outside.

In keeping with the theme, here is an animal portrait that was painted in an event I organized on behalf of PawsWithCause for the shelter, South County Cats. I'm likening it to paintings by Fauvist Henri Matisse for its straight-out-of-the-tube colors.

"The Sower" (1888), Van Gogh

The striped backside of the cat makes me think of the background of Van Gogh's painting, "The Sower".

You may also like to read about The Most Famous Arty Pet Lovers And Their Furry Friends. For example, Georgia O'Keeffe's first dog was a poodle named Pancho, and she also had a total of six Chows as pets over her lifetime. Like Picasso, Andy Warhol favored dachshunds and kept two as pets.

Easter Eggs -- Symbols of the Resurrection in Pastel Colors

Easter Eggs

Persian Egg, Etsy

Easter is the time of year when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Easter egg symbolizes the empty place from which Jesus emerged following his crucifixion and ultimate entombment. Other cultures have decorated eggs as a form of celebrating the Spring equinox, during which the Persian New Year (Nowruz) falls, for example. Themes of fertility, rebirth, and new life are also common in English, Germanic, and other European cultures.

Do you know why Easter eggs are traditionally dyed in pastel colors? Pale yellow symbolizes the resurrection, pink for the blood of Christ, lavender for the joy that Mary Magdalene and the other women felt when they saw the tomb was empty, and sky blue is a reminder of Christ's love.

Roger Moore,
Octopussy's Bond

So, how is this relative to art? Decorating eggs can be a fun art activity for young and old. Let's not forget the sought-after bejeweled Fabergé egg that belonged to the imperial family of Russia and was auctioned off in Ian Fleming's Bond classic, Octopussy. And by definition, the period of history (14th thru 16th centuries) known as the Renaissance was entirely dedicated to rebirth. One of the most famous artists and the architect of the Spanish Renaissance was Greek painter and sculptor, El Greco.

European Religious Art

Christ Blessing
('The Saviour of the World')
(ca. 1600), El Greco

British Sister Wendy (Beckett), one of the foremost art historians of the 20th Century, was particularly enamored by the art of Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, and El Greco. I used to watch her somewhat quirky TV special presentations and happily own one of her books, Sister Wendy's Grand Tour, Discovering Europe's Great Art. which includes highlights of her privileged trip to the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. Someday, I would love to visit.

And Jesus was the subject of over a dozen religious works by El Greco. I don't recall seeing this particular painting while in Edinburgh, though it is apparently on display at the Scottish National Gallery. Christ is a common subject in many paintings, including those of Raphael, Bellini, and of course Leonardo da Vinci.

Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500), da Vinci

The famous Salvator Mundi painting of Jesus, often attributed to da Vinci, fetched a whopping $450 Million in 2017. It is one of a few surviving works from a private collection. I show it here because both artists depicted Christ in a similar pose with his left hand on a sphere (not an egg!). Personally, I prefer El Greco's!!

Pieta (1576), Titian

Probably the most recognizable image of the dead Christ is Michelangelo's marble statue of the Pieta, created in 1498-99 and residing in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. While in Rome in May 2011 the lines were too long to visit St. Peter's. Both Michelangelo and Titian influenced El Greco, and all three created such portraits of Mother Mary and Jesus. Titian's Pieta was his final painting and includes his self-portrait as the old man in red holding the hand of the dead Christ.

Pastels -- The Renaissance & Beyond

It turns out that pastels as an art medium originated during the late Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo and da Vinci used chalk mainly for sketching and they were initially only available in black, white, and red.

It wasn't until the mid-18th century that pastels were taken seriously by professional painters. Now, let's explore the works of three of the most famous artists who used pastels.

Mary Cassatt

Mother and Child (1914), Mary Cassatt

Continuing with the mother and child theme, here is a beautiful pastel painting by American portrait and figure artist Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). I love the color scheme and the fine blue strokes that subtly add shading to her figures. I'd love to see this one in person. Even the background is interesting and appears to marry together many of the colors, and contrasts nicely with the warm tones used on her subjects.

Edgar Degas

Four Ballerinas on the Stage (1885-90), Degas

French artist Edgar Degas is most famous for painting ballet dancers and occasionally portraits of friends and jockeys and their horses. He often used black outlines on his figures and was less concerned with facial details, leaving his impressions largely to the posing and positioning of his dancers. The contrasting orange tutu and the lines created by the dancers' arms keep our eyes focused on the three dancers in the middle, even though the blue figure is truncated. The patch of blue in the scenery serves to balance out her blue skirt, creating more diagonal movement.

Jean-François Millet

Shepherdess and Her Flock
(1864-65), Millet

When teaching elementary school-age children about French realist Jean-François Millet, I usually show The Gleaners (1857), one of his most famous works depicting peasant life. This pastel work, though less colorful, has a softness and peacefulness about it that I appreciate. Its atmospheric effect makes it hard to tell the time of day. Let's assume that the woman has led her sheep to pasture for an early morning breakfast.

Man with a Hoe (1860-62),
Jean-François Millet

In my pastels class taught to adults at Franke Tobey Jones' Senior University, we did pastel landscapes the first day, then switched to trying a more limited palette on the second day. I wish I had used these two pastel paintings by Millet as examples for my classes.

Untitled

One of my adult students completed this drawing of a reclining kitten. Her adaptation is reminiscent of the Millet (above) with its use of white pastel as an accent. Note how both artists made use of paper that was already a color (not white) and allows the background to peek through the black/brown and white pastel strokes. Very impressionistic kitty!

My Degas Recreation

As a demo for my pastels class, I did a copy of Degas' Ballerina and Lady With a Fan (1885) to show many of the various strokes one can use. The purple paper provided the perfect underpainting and my smudges served as shadows under the dancers' white legs. Don't forget that many artists, including Van Gogh, liked to copy the works of artists who preceded them, for example, artists such as Millet and various Japanese artists.

Bryce and Friends (2021), Ken Patterson

I really enjoyed painting my dog, Bryce, and his friends playing at a California dog park. It challenged me to use small strokes of light blue, browns and grays to emulate the rocks, including the shadows created by the trees. It reminds me of Georges Seurat, the famous French Post- or Neo-Impressionist who used Pointillism (a.k.a. Divionism or Chromoluminarism) to create light effects in his paintings. Seurat and Signac pioneered their technique in Paris in the mid-1880s. Seurat died at the young age of 31 of unknown causes in 1891, leaving his painting, The Circus, unfinished.