Mujer de Rojo

Location: Madrid, Spain

Tuesday June 8, 201

So you know how I said I like my substitute art history professor more than my real one? Well, it’s quite true. He tells us a lot more information and tidbits about each particular painting rather than making us apply a strict formula for interpretation. We were looking at Velázquez and Rubens that day at the Prado. Towards the end of class, we talked about a large Rubens painting without looking at the painting’s accompanying placard. The substitute asked us what we thought about the painting. We talked about how it was the first time we have seen a woman with such power and bearing. The professor was quite amused at our talk about the masculinity of the woman in red and the emphasis Rubens puts into the lady’s motion at that point in time. Some sort of early feministic statement, perhaps? After letting us go on for fifteen minutes about the strange lady in red, the substitute revealed to us that lady was in fact a man, Achilles. The class let out an “oooh” of understanding in unison. It turned out that the painting’s title was Aquiles Descubierto por Ulyses. Oh Sub, hearing us blab on and on about our ridiculous theories must have been pretty entertaining…

Isabella and I stayed after to check out the Italian Renaissance exhibits. When we left the museum, we walked in our first rain in Spain. In reality, the rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain. Because there was/are/will be showers all over the country this entire week. In fact, there are regions in the north that are flooded from the rain. Carmen and I watch the same shocking clips of the floods in the morning news during breakfast everyday. Yes, there’s a lot of water.