The elegant streets of Madrid offer any student lucky enough to travel with school parties to the city the opportunity to visit many great museums. These museums will be inspirational to art students or to anyone with a love of art. The City's Own Artist Francisco de Goya was an artist on the cusp of the period of the Old Masters and the beginnings of Modern Art. Although he was born in Aragon, he has long been associated with the city of Madrid; his early career was at the Court of Madrid where he was the court painter to the Spanish Royalty. This connection is commemorated with the museum in his name. The Goya Museum was once a chapel and Goya was commissioned to decorate it; he did this with some wonderful frescoes that depict The Miracle of St Anthony, which he completed in just 120 days. The chapel became a museum in 1928 and features works by Goya dating from the 18th century. Although Goya died in Bordeaux, his tomb is in the museum and it was declared as a National Monument in 1905. Classic Art The Prado is the most famous museum in Madrid, and rightly so. This stunning classical building was commissioned by Charles III in 1785 to house a Natural History collection. Its use changed when Ferdinand VII decided it should be a Royal Museum for Paintings and Sculptures, and it opened to the public in its new guise in 1819. Today the museum holds around 7500 paintings, 1000 sculptures and many more drawings and prints. At all times there are around 1000 works exhibited. These include work by such artists as El Greco, Goya, portraits by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, and a wonderful collection of work by the Italian artist Raphael. Another great museum for art students who travel with school parties to visit is the Real Academia Bellas Artes San Fernando, which exhibits masterpieces from the Flemish, Italian and Spanish schools. These works include work by Rubens as well as later work by Picasso, including his Head of a Woman. The decorative arts are also on display in this museum, with exhibits of Persian porcelain, Egyptian antiquities, and fans, amongst many others. Modern Art The Thyssen family have long been associated with collecting art, and a great museum to visit for modern art students who travel with school trips to Madrid is the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. This building, which combines traditional and modern architecture, is a fitting setting for the host of wonderful art that lies within.
The collection boasts such masterpieces as Chagall's The Gray House, Paul Gauguin's Mata Mua (Once Upon a Time), and Pablo Picasso's Harlequin with Mirror. But it's not all modern art and the collection also includes Hans Holbein the Younger's Portrait of Henry VIII of England and Edgar Degas' Swaying Dancer. It's a diverse collection that will satisfy all tastes in art. Of course, these are only some of the great museums that can be visited in Madrid when art students travel with school groups to the city. There are plenty more to discover and Madrid will satisfy even the most avid cultural appetites. Angela Bowden works for STS (School Travel Service), the UK's largest educational travel company, providing travel with school groups for secondary schools, primary schools and colleges. Trips with STS can encompass a focus on art/design, foreign languages, history, science/nature, geography and more, to worldwide destinations.
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