There is too much to see and too little time in this marvelous city! These Christmas do not miss…        PALACIO DE CIBELES: “Casa Alba”.  Without a doubt this will be one of the major exhibitions of the year. Historically, The Dukes of Alba have been the largest art collectors after the Royal Dynasties in Spain. Their taste for art is exquisite, and their collection is wonderful, at least the minute part of it shown here. We fin Goyas’, Titians’, Ingres’, Rubens’, and Fra Angelico’s “Our Lady of Granada,” which according to the director of the MET is the painter’s…

Madrid is well known for its art museums. While many permanent exhibits are world renown, the museums also treat us to excellent temporary exhibits. Here are Madrid’s 5 best temporary exhibits to see till December 2012. PALACIO REAL  “El Infante Don Luis.” An interesting character, and Carlos III’s brother, Don Luis married a woman of lower social status and therefore was banished from the Court. He is obligated to live in a Palace in Avila   where some of the most interesting intellectuals of the era gathered. Goya could not resist visiting him and stays almost a month, making portraits of…

It is a particular pleasure for me to introduce the guest post of my colleague Marta Laurent the best tour guide in Barcelona. Barcelona has the dynamic and open personality so typical of Mediterranean cities. It is the perfect city to relax in, stroll around and enjoy. Barcelona has its own way of life which makes it unique…but remember, you need and expert as Marta. In 1957 Picasso is living in a mansion near Cannes and he decides to shot himself in his workshop to work for months on a series of interpretations of the famous Las Meninas by Velázquez…

Today the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum celebrates its 20th anniversary.    Thank you for bringing art to our lives! A new exibition ” Gauguin y el viaje a lo exótico “ starts tomorrow and will focus on the results of the artistic explorations undertaken by artists including Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Klee and Macke. It will also look at Gauguin’s influence on the German Expressionists and the French Fauves, emphasising his role as the creator of a new and exotic canon, the starting point for the avant-garde artistic idioms that arose in the early decades of the 20th century.   Artists started to…

The picture of this lady from the Renaissance period was given as a gift to Francis I, King of France, by Cardinal Bibbiena, on behalf of the Medici Pope Leo X, who had earlier instructed Raphael to do several religious painting in order to give them to the monarchs with the intention of persuading the monarchs to join in the war with the Turks. When you first enter into the last room of the exhibition, you are faced with the Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena and this delicate lady. One of the first things you might notice is how the two…