Spanish Sisters in Madrid

Today Meg popped into a coffee shop while I waited outside and she came back grinning.  "I just played soccer in Spain, and you didn't!" she said.  It was very obvious gloating.

"What?!"

"Yeah, there were three boys in there kicking the ball around and one pass rolled right to me and everyone kinda waited and looked at me so I smiled and kicked it back."

"Damnit!!  Not fair!"

Huge Meg smile.  I have never seen so many teeth and gums on her.

I have to admit I owe a huge debt to her for agreeing to come to Madrid with me at the last minute.  She works a lot-- like fifty hours a week maybe?  And she has kids too so we don't see each other as often as we should. But in late July I sent her a text that said "So.... Do you want to go to Madrid with me for five days in August?"  And then within 24 hours she sent me a text back that said "So, looks like I could book a British Airways flight on air miles...." ..and before I knew it it was all booked and she sent me a series of 3 emojis: an airplane, something I couldn't recognize, and a smiley face.

"What's that middle thing?"  I texted back.  "The emoji.  Is that a tampon?"

"It's a picture of money with wings.  As in 'my money is flying away on this trip I'm taking with you'," she texted back.

Can I just interject here that I'm really glad there's no tampon emoji?

Anyway, I'm lucky to have her.  Today she came to the Caravaggio exhibit with me and patiently listened to me drone on and on about it and then when we came home we opened a bottle of cava and I drank way more than my share of it and she totally noticed and didn't say anything at all.

Madrid Cuatro

Madrid highlights of today:

1. When you order a beer in a bar, there is no choice of craft beer or anything, in most places there's just the one kind.  And when they bring it to you, they also bring you a snack without you asking for it.  Yesterday it was a dish of olives.  But today it was two little slices of French bread, each soaked in some kind of oily green stuff with a silly little whole fish on the top of it, topped with some strawberry jam.  Not joking.  Mmm...fish and jam.  "Are we supposed to eat it or laugh at it?" I said to Meg.  We did it, we ate it, and we were feeling pretty self congratulatory, but then I swear I saw two hombres peeking out from behind the kitchen door giggling at us and saying "Dude, I told you they'd think it was a Spanish specialty.  You owe me 5 euros."

2.  Kids as young as six were playing soccer in the square until 11pm tonight, and every single one of them is wearing a Real Madrid jersey which makes it really hard to make teams because everyone is wearing red. I  SO wanted to join but I was a little worried about playing in the dark on stairs in flip flops.  The ball did roll towards me at one point and I almost had my chance to kick it back but it hit a tree instead. Meg kindly said "I totally would have gotten out of the way so you could have kicked it," and I said, "yeah, don't worry, I would have pushed you out of the way if it meant I could have kicked it."  We're close like that.

3.  There's a whole lot of Jesus in Madrid.  Like, A LOT, a lot.  Today we went to the Prado museum and saw happy Jesuses and sad Jesusus and skinny Jesuses and kinda Nordic, Swedish style Jesuses, and even one baby Jesus that was the spitting image of Betty White.  For real.  It's probably for the best that I can't post photos of that one.  It was a little disturbing, I'm not gonna lie.

4.  I've done three museums in three days, so tomorrow, I'm going shopping.  I'm going to try to buy myself a Sergio Ramos.  Google him.  You can thank me later.

Madrid the Third

So, good news: I think my Spanish is improving!  Today when I used my visa and entered my PIN the machine said 'numero secreto correcta' and I totally understood it!  Plus Meg and I went to the grocery store and I recognized the signs for both tomatoes ('tomates') and mayonnaise ('mayonesa').  I guess what I'm saying is that I know it's only been two days but I'm basically fluent in Spanish now.

I don't have the hang of everything though.  An example: I read in a Madrid guidebook that when you eat in a restaurant, it's customary to keep your hands above the table where people can see them.  What kind of questionable exploits are Spaniards engaging in down there for this to be proper restaurant etiquette?  And do you have any idea how hard this is?   Restaurants are where the wifi is so my hands are under the table all the time-- on my phone!  It's crucial that I don't miss any precious pet videos being posted in Canada.

Unfortunately because I have no mobile coverage here without wifi I do miss stuff.  Like, Manu, my Spanish friend from soccer in Tsawwassen, was in Madrid today too and trying to message me because he was killing time waiting for a train RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from where I was at a museum, also killing time waiting for my sister.  In fact we later figured out we were drinking beer at the same time, except because he is smart, he was drinking beer at McDonalds where it costs 1 euro, while I was drinking it in the museum cafe where it costs 4 euros for a smaller glass.  I guess it doesn't matter that we didn't meet up in person since we ended up texting for an hour anyway and I'm going to see him at soccer next Monday.  But why did he have to make me promise not to eat at McDonalds here RIGHT BEFORE he told me they sell cheap beer and chicken wings and ice cream with coffee on it?

I also saw many amazing Picasso and Salvador Dali paintings today but I cannot post pics with this blog because of technical issues.  Calling them 'technical issues' is a nice way of saying I have tried to post photos for hours but cannot and I just want to kill blogger.  With fire.   If you want to know what the paintings looked like just use your imaginatiion and think about paintings where people's teeth come out of their ears and they have extra eyes on their foreheads and everyone's watch is melting.

Adios amigos!

Madrid Dia Dos

Today I did not get lost and no one hit on me!  Although I suppose that last observation is only a guess since several people spoke a lot of fast Spanish to me today and got blank looks in return.  Unless the question someone is asking is spoken very slowly and includes the words 'hola', 'Beunos Dias'  or 'cerveza', I am not going to be able to understand it at all.  Even then sometimes I catch myself smiling and nodding and saying 'si,' and I just now realize I might want to amend that tactic because I could be agreeing to all sorts of really dodgy stuff.

While Meg slept off jet leg I snuck off and saw the wonderful Caravaggio paintings by myself.  You really must see paintings you like in person if you can--  I thought I knew these paintings in great detail but more than once today I saw dirty toenails and surprise nipples that I didn't know existed!   (Calm down, I was not allowed to take any pictures of the paintings, so I can't show you.  And  I know that perhaps I shouldn't sound so excited about those things, but you do you, and I will do me.)

Other Madrid highlights;  I saw a 5 on 5 soccer game being played in a plaza where one net was the space between a tree and a light post, and the other net was a large graffitied metal box.  The playing field also included varying heights as there were long flat stairs in the plaza.  Why didn't I ask if I could play too?  It is my great regret of this trip so far that I was too chicken to ask, even though I was at least 30 years older than everyone playing, wearing a skirt, and don't speak Spanish.  And a female.  But I think they might have said yes, because I could tell they were my kind of people.  I don't speak their language but trash talking sounds the same in all languages.  Maybe tomorrow.

And I found a wine store around the corner from the apartment that sells the Spanish Champagne cava for less than 6 euros!  The kind that costs $20 in Canada.  We may have bought all the bottles they had. Shhhh...don't judge, I can drink that for breakfast-- it is grape juice after all.  Just as interesting: that wine store also sells Princess Barbie dolls!  How come no one in Canada has put those two things together yet?!  If I had a party and invited my forty/fifty something girlfriends over to drink wine and champagne and play Barbies, we would have a killer time.  Who's in?

And full disclosure: Today I ate Andre's cookies.  That is not a euphemism for anything, I just ate the actual package of cookies he forced me to take from the plane because I found them in my purse and I was starving.  I didn't want to eat them on principle, but I failed.  Damn him for being right about that.

Madrid Day 1

So guys, I'm in Madrid.

You know that feeling when you're really into 17th century Italian painting and you find out that a museum in Madrid is having a huge exhibit of Caravaggio's work so you just selfishly use all your family's travel money and go, by yourself, kinda at the last minute?  You don't?  Ok maybe it's just me that does that.

The flight to Munich was delayed by an hour which meant I only had 15 minutes to bolt through that airport at top speed to the (changed) gate for my connecting flight to Madrid.  Fun!  But I made it and promptly fell asleep once I got on the plane.  You know that wakey-sleepy sleep you get on airplanes when you are all disoriented?  It was that, except I only got to wake up the one time since my seat mate was not having any of that sleeping nonsense.  The second I opened my eyes he said 'good morning!' -- which I realize now may have been the only full English phrase he knows-- and he talked for the remaining two hours.  Andre was born in the Ukraine or maybe Russia and might now live in Madrid and park cars for a job.  Or he might not.  Who can say for sure?  But Andre wasn't going to let his lack of English stop him from his barrage of questions, many of which seemed to be about the 'frontier' between Canada and the US.  After a while he also said, out of nowhere,  "You are very beautiful."

"Err, thanks."

"And I am very wonderful, so Canada and the Ukraine..." And he clasped his hands together very tightly while I suddenly decided this was an excellent time to visit the bathroom.

When I got back he tried to give me his package of uneaten cookies.  After I declined repeatedly he actually took my hand and forced them into it and said "you are very....difficile," and I said "you mean 'difficult'?" And he excitedly said "yeah!" and I coukdn't argue with him there, so I said nothing.  Then he said "You married?" and I said "yes!" just as excitedly and flashed my ring, to no effect.  When I explained my sister was meeting me here and that we did not bring our husbands, he said, leadingly, "oh, it is much too sad to travel in only groups of two..." as though he was working on trying to remember the English word for 'threesone', then he insisted on trying to lift my bag down for me even though I was already holding it and I am strong as an ox.  As soon as I got off the plane I ducked into the bathroom to hide and the girl in the stall beside me was barfing uncontrollably but I kinda didn't mind the sound of it compared to listening to Andre.  Luckily when I came out he was gone.

Then I got on the wrong train to get to our rental Airbnb and rode 15 stops instead of 2 like I was supposed to which made me very late.  And the Spanish train conductor got Spanish mad at me for putting my feet up on a seat and then Mercedes the Airbnb lady got Spanish mad at me again for being late when she finally showed me into the apartment.

But it looks like a classy hooker's apartment and I love it.  (Maybe it is a classy hooker's apartment?  Who cares!  It has free wifi.)

So anyway, Madrid!  Exciting!  Tomorrow I get to see art with my sis.  Life is good.

Hands Down - It's Hard to Tell What's a True Caravaggio

Back from Boston and I've changed my mind about almost everythng I wrote before.

Of course, seeing the paintings in person makes a tremendous difference - who'd a thunk it?

Here's some pictures (courtesy of my sister and her excellent camera):

From Fortune Teller - look how beautiful the detail is.

More hands, also from the same painting - and in person or in enlargements of this painting, you can clearly see her pulling off his ring (beside her smallest finger).

Here's a hand detail from St Francis in Meditation. Don't you just want to get some nail clippers?! I'm still not convinced this was by Caravaggio, even though he often painted dirty fingernails.

Here's one from the Portrait of Maffaeo Barberini, the one with the vase of flowers I wrote about in a previous blog.

And this is the portrat sitter's other hand. Aren't they lovely? I hadn't thought this was Caravaggio from the photographs, but I'm more convinced now that it could be him. The light and shading on the hands in these last two pictures is just magnificent.

But then, there's this. It's from the Portrait of a Knight of Malta and it looks.....kinda ridiculous beside the other hands. Granted, the photo's not great because they had glass over this canvas, but Andrew Graham-Dixon's biography of Caravaggio was right about this one - care was not taken in painting this hand. In fact, I'm not sure if you can see it, but there's a kind of diagonal line leading away from the top of his thumb - perhaps he was originally holding a shield in this hand where the line goes? The hand is just...comically inflated for the hand of a 74 year old man. (It's almost as though someone as talentless as me painted this hand - it's like kids draw hands when they're learning - you know, just a circle, with lines for fingers.)

Here's the painting it's taken from. Because it's so dark, you might not be able to see it, but the foreshortening on the arm on the left side is wrong - his arm looks too short. The face is really, really well done though and the use of the lighting is classic Caravaggio - which is what makes me think the hand was done by someone else. (This was often done in Renaissance times - I've read that when he was being apprenticed as a painter, Caravaggio himself was thought to have done vases of flowers on other painters paintings.) Art historians who write about this painting say the sitter wanted to show he was both a distinguished war hero (as evidenced by his hand on his sword) and a devout religious man (because he's holding rosary beads). But maybe he didn't think to appear religious until much later, after the original painter of his portrait (Caravaggio) had been expelled disgracefully from the Knights of Malta - so he had to get some lesser painter to amend it. Who knows?

Boston was so fun - the exhibit was great (I bought four new Caravaggio books), went to a wicked Frank Turner concert with my sister right beside the Harvard University campus and danced the night away in the second row, drank lots of craft beer in gastropubs, and even got to see my brother during our layover in Toronto on the way home. Plus, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, one of the biggest museums in the US, retweeted out some of my Caravaggio scribblings to all of its thousands of followers. An expensive, epic weekend - but totally worth it.

True Caravaggio? Two Caravaggios - Fortune Teller

This is the last of the four paintings from MFA Boston's exhibit - Fotrune Teller, done in 1594. The lady on the left is a gypsy and the foppish man on the right is being duped by her - she's telling his fortune by reading his face and hand, but she's also stealing his ring in the process. (The ring is extremely hard to see and according to author Rosella Vodret, its presence was only discovered during restoration work done on the painting in 1985.)

X-rays show that Caravaggio painted it on a used canvas. There are also existing records that prove our 'starving artist', sold it in desperation for only 8 scudi (roughly the amount an office worker needed to live on for a week in Renaissance Rome.) But he likely sold it to an important banker (some details are fuzzy on this), and then it was seen by Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, a supporter of the arts who later became Caravaggio's patron, inviting him to live and work in his luxurious home for several years (during which time Caravaggio completed some amazing works and became justifiably famous). Del Monte liked this painting so much, he asked Caravaggio to paint a second version of it so he could have one too- so here's his second attempt, below.

Art Historians say the second version of Fortune Teller shows a much more mature style, but to my untrained eye, I don't really see it. Yes, the white collar of his shirt and feather in his hat are much fancier (although we may not give Caravaggio credit for the feather - see below) The light is more dynamic here too. There's also some differences with the drapery and the hands - hers are held differently and he's wearing one glove here. But I prefer the face of the girl in the original - there's something more enigmatic there (or possibly, I just like her clothes better since she doesn't have that ridiculous white sash under her chin that makes her look like she has a toothache.) This painting hangs in the Louvre, in Paris, and it's thought to have been done three years later, in 1597.

Technical fun fact: Louis XIV owned the Paris version at one time (I guess that's why it's in France), and had an extra strip of canvas added along the top so that it would be the same size as another painting he owned that was hanging alongside it. Whoever added this strip apparently also embellished the feather. You can see the strip in person - here's a detail I took with my iphone (at right) when I visited Paris in 2012. Look to the left of the feather...there's a bit of a visible line.

Content fun fact (at least, it's fun for geeks like me): This is a 'genre painting' which means it was a rare, non-religious work that was probably depicting comedic actors from commedia dell'arte, which was very popular entertainment in Italy in 1600. They were performing at the same time that Shakespeare was doing plays in England, although there, women weren't allowed on the stage like they were in Italy - we know that Shakespeare's plays had all female parts played by male actors. Also, female depictions by other Italian artists from the same time period (like Titian), almost always showed a lot more female flesh- whereas Caravaggio is positively chaste - the girls in both versions of Fortune Teller couldn't be wearing any more clothing than they already are. But don't think that this means Caravaggio was a supporter of women's rights - as Francine Prose points out in her book Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles: "Whenever a male and female appear together in Caravaggio's secular paintings....the implications of their connection are unfortunate, even dire: The man is being cheated or killed." Oh dear.

Ok, one more thing: Caravaggio may have used this same yellow outfit and hat, and even the same model from the Paris painting (thought to be Mario Minniti, a painter himself) in the painting that truly made him a star - Calling of St. Matthew, which still hangs in San Luigi Dei Francesi in Rome. It's one of my favourites.

Here's the final word: it was common practice in 17th century Rome for poets to write poems about paintings they liked, and to circulate them, almost like a movie or book review. Gaspare Murtola wrote one about the gypsy in Caravaggio's Fortune Teller. It translates to:

I don't know who is the greater magician,
The woman, who deceives,
Or you, who paint her