Buscando Aventuras en Barcelona: Aventura 15: Museo de Picasso

A museum a week. That's my plan. And the museum of the week is........el museo de Picasso. This museum is in the Barrio Born, and the entrance and bottom floor of the museum is an old stone palace. So even from the get-go I loved the museum.

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What was great about this museum wasn't that it had all the most famous paintings of Picasso, but actually the opposite. It had all the little secrets, all the sketches or the unfinished paintings that no one ever sees, and you wouldn't expect to be from Picasso. One day he drew caricature sketch of a friend, with an angry sun! Another day, for a comedy journal, he created another caricature of a friend, having quite a lot of fun....

He had a few paintings that had secrets, like this one where after doing a radiographic screening, they realized that there was a painting of a man underneath. I tried to will my eyes to have x-ray vision so I could see the man underneath the flower, but alas, today was not the day for x-ray vision I guess.

And there were paintings of Picasso's time in Barcelona! So I could see Barcelona through his eyes during his time! This is pretty different than the beachfront today, isn't it?

And the best part of the museum: that I could see the evolution of Picasso's art throughout his life, from his oil paintings on pieces of wood when he was fifteen to the cubist art that he is most famous for. Seeing this progress of art was breathtaking - especially as someone who likes art. I got to see all the hard work for many years to get to his famous pieces of work. I got to see thirty different versions of "Las Meninas" until he got to the final one that is his best-known work. Art isn't just about one painting, but all the history and hard work behind that painting. And walking through the different rooms, seeing how Picasso's art change while also seeing where it was going, as if I could look into the future, was a great adventure.

I've tried to put these in order and representative of the progression of art in Picasso's life. All photos are from the collection online at Museo de Picasso. You can see for yourself a little slice of this amazing evolution.