It's a Bloody Mystery

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation / Real Monasterio de la Encarnación
05/11/12 – Plaza de la Encarnación

The Royal Monastery of the Incarnation was established in 1611, a few years after the Monastery of the Barefoot Noblewomen.  In olden times, a passageway from the nearby Royal Palace allowed the royal family to visit and worship at their convenience. The monastery conducts 1-hour guided visits in Spanish. 

  

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation

The guide told us that 10 nuns still live in the cloister today, hidden from view.  A revolving wooden counter set in an interior wall--identical to the “torno” for convent sweets at the Convent of Corpus Christi--functions as their portal of communication with the outside world.  How I would like to interview one of those nuns, or at least send a list of written questions through the wall!  

What's it like to never leave?

As the guide whisked us from room to room, she pointed out religious figures in time-darkened paintings; statues of the virgin wearing real outfits of embroidered silk; and the royal visages of Spain’s pallid, pursed-lipped Austrian monarchs.  At one point the guide chastised a hapless man who strayed several meters from the group.  Perhaps he too was trying to get a glimpse of a living being amongst the Stations of the Cross.  The windows onto the courtyard, it turns out, have opaque glass.  

 

The paintings and sculptures are not as impressive as those in the Monastery of the Barefoot Royals, and the rooms are not as lavish. My favorite painting showed a nun laid out in her coffin, covered in flowers; the guide said it was a rare illustration of the convent’s funerary tradition.  A huge painting of a biblical wedding scene shows a banquet table laden with empanadas. A life-sized 17^th century sculpture by Gregorio Fernandez, of the reclining Christ covered in blood, is all too realistic.  The final station for our group, a room chock full of saintly relics, might be worth the price of admission (7 euros).  

St. Pantalemon, usually portrayed as a mop-top

From floor to ceiling, the walls are lined with artfully displayed bone chips, the arms of eight martyrs, and the leg of St. Margaret.  A reliquary with a glass orb contains the solidified blood of St. Pantalemon, a Christian healer from the early fourth century.  According to legend, he was tortured mercilessly and then beheaded for performing miracles on sick people instead of treating them in the normal way—normal for Greek doctors in the year 303 CE, that is.  

Every year on July 27, the day of St. Pantalemon’s death, the reliquary is carried to the Baroque church next door and displayed to the public, as well as broadcasted on closed-circuit TV monitors.  On that day only, the blood in the orb is said to turn from a solid to a liquid before your eyes.  As luck would have it, we leave Madrid for home on July 27, and will not be here to see it.

Adventure in the Cloister, or, How to Buy Sweets from Invisible Nuns

Monastery of Corpus Christi / Monasterio del Corpus Christi
04/24/12 - Plaza del Conde de Miranda, 3
A Step-by-Step Guide to Buying "Dulces del convento"

In college, I was startled to see a flock of nuns in full habit out for a jog on New York’s Riverside Drive, their white veils flapping in the breeze.  I grew up far from nuns, in a southern California beach town that seemed to exist outside time.  While it’s true that I fled the land of lotus-eaters in order to attend an all-female school in New York, I was lured by Barnard’s location, rigor, and scholarship aid.  I can't imagine renouncing the secular world or the company of men, whom I find delightful much of the time.  Still, I can admire the good works of nuns around the world, as they tend to the poor, the powerless, and the sickest among us. The Vatican’s recent crackdown on American nuns for their devotion to issues of social justice shows how completely out of touch it has become.
  
I wrote earlier about the art collection in Madrid's Monastery of Barefoot Noblewomen, a cloistered order in which only two dozen nuns remain.  Another cloister has resided in the Monastery of Corpus Christi (also known as Las Carboneras) since the year 1605. 

Church entry, Plaza Conde de Miranda, 3 (doorway to sweets is at R, not shown)

To help support themselves, the nuns bake traditional sweets, which they sell while hidden behind a wooden turnstile within the convent. The recipes, it is said, have been passed down through the ages from the time of the Romans and the Moors.  Here is the buying process as I found it today:

1. Once I arrived at the set of carved wooden doors to the right of the church entrance, I rang the top bell, marked monjas (nuns).  When a voice answered, I stated my business, “Dulces, por favor,” and a nun buzzed me in. 

Ring the bell on the right side

2. I proceeded through a dim corridor that led to a small, open courtyard.

Go straight through doorway

Almost there

3. Then I passed through another short hallway, a small open space, and at last a doorway where a revolving counter is set into the left wall.

The price list for sweets is posted. A friendly, self-appointed Roma lady might be present to guide you through the process. Her Spanish was as rudimentary as mine, but I didn’t mind her assistance--nor could I avoid it!

Today's selection of sweets

4. A disembodied voice behind the wall addressed us and the nun placed the selection of sweets upon a revolving counter (the torno), then turned it until the items appeared on our side of the wall.  I told her I’d like one of each, and placed the money on the counter.  The nun turned the counter yet again, and she tallied the total aloud in a wavering voice.  “She’s really old,” the Roma lady informed me, as the voice started to tabulate a second time.  I pictured a four-foot nun of about one hundred and ten.  My change arrived, another group entered, and I left with my sweets: a box of starry pastas de almendra, and a bag of galletas, lightly scented with lemon.

Arrival of the dulces

Tea time. Crisp sugar biscuits (L) and chewy almond sweets

S1 and S2: the testers

After all that, how did they taste, you ask?  -- ¡Riquísimo!

Hand-Made in Spain, for Peasants and Queens

Royal Tapestry Factory / Real Fábrica de Tapices
04/16/12 - Calle Fuentarrabía, 2

We have the same taste

Just last weekend, I finally entered the renowned house of espadrilles Casa Hernanz (Calle de Toledo, 18), accompanied by two friends.  After determining our place in the ragged line, we mentally recorded the styles and colors we wanted to try.  The espadrilles (or, as the Spanish call them, alpargatas) may not be stitched entirely by hand, but they are made the old way, and still a bargain. The pair in this picture was 12 euros. 

At the other end of the cost spectrum, the Royal Tapestry Factory fulfills custom orders at a dignified pace, much as it has done since the early 18th century, when King Phillip V started a factory in Madrid with the help of Belgian master weavers. The current factory, a brick building near the Atocha train station, has been in operation since the 1880s. It contains a museum with a half-hour guided tour for 4 euros.

The museum tour lets you watch highly-skilled artisans at work (no photos allowed, but you can view the process from home in this 3-minute video).  In fact, we stood inches from the blue-smocked workers. We observed their fingers flying, and heard the thump of their mallets as they tamped down woven threads.  My tour group of inquisitive middle-aged Spanish ladies even engaged the artisans in banter. 

Tapestry based on a Goya illustration, Royal Tapestry Factory

One can only guess at prices.  Four people will labor for two years to make a tapestry that covers an entire wall.  The carpets I saw were too gorgeous to tread upon, even in virgin alpargatas.

Inside/Outside the Head (& the Museum of Anthropology)

National Museum of Anthropology / Museo Nacional de Antropología
03/23/12—Calle Alfonso XII, 68

This is a museum diary, but when I extend its reach to cultural display, all Madrid’s my oyster.  One small observation can set off a chain of connected thoughts.  Let’s begin with the utter lack of visual stimulation inside our local public high school.  My sons each sit in one room all day, while teachers appear and disappear at intervals.  The walls of their respective classrooms are completely blank.  No posters, inspirational quotes, maps, or samples of student work. No Matisse prints or even “hang in there” kittens. Nada. This austerity strikes my 13-year-old as sad and bizarre.  (The 16-year-old is more perturbed by the requirement to sit still for hours on end.  He’s bitten his cuticles to the quick.)

Outside, though, Madrid is a riot of movement and color.  One moment you are admiring the parade of French bulldogs, the next, you’re face to face with monumental baby heads. 

Antonio Lopez, Día y Noche, 2008

Across the street, oh happy day, spring is finally blooming, as this tree announces outside the National Museum of Anthropology.  

A bright and modern space with three levels covering Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania, the museum might be a nice place to spend an hour while you wait for your train to pull into Atocha Station.  

 
Due to a lack of pizazz, and a perhaps an overly-cautious paring of the collection on display, I don’t recommend the Museum of Anthropology as a destination for the short-term tourist. You will see more, and better, at the Museum of America. Then again, on the top floor, the beaded dress of a 19th century Lakota Sioux will pull you straight into her orbit.  

 
Returning to the lack of visual stimulation in our local institution of secondary education, I wonder if the classroom-as-monastic-cell is a pedagogic strategy, or just a sign of apathy.  Either way, I say, the world outside is teeming, please let it in.  In my mind’s eye I still see a picture I gazed at in Mr. Engberg's class, Muirlands Junior High, 1977: Picasso’s hands with a bunch of flowers, next to a quote by e.e. cummings, “i thank heaven somebody’s crazy enough to give me a daisy.” 

The Museum of Ham

Museum of Ham / Museo del Jamón
02/24/12 – Carrera de San Jerónimo, 6

Bakery / Museo del Pan Gallego (Pl. de Herradores, 9)

On my quixotic journey to every museum in Madrid, I’ve come across a breed I’ll call the faux museum.  Rather than displaying fine paintings or jeweled snuffboxes, these establishments provide the necessities of earthly life.  For example, on a tiny plaza not far from Calle Arenal sits the Museum of Galician Bread.

Close to the touristy heart of the city hangs a sign for the Museum of Wine, though the entrance to this restaurant, if it exists, can only be accessed through a midnight incantation.

Calle de la Cruz, 14

According to the website, the art deco Museum Chicote (Calle Gran Vía, 12) has been serving cocktails to movie stars since 1931: Ava Gardner, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra... all drank here.

Cocktail bar Museo Chicote--seen better days?

And then there is The Factory Beer Museum. If I read the web site correctly, the Beer Museum offers a literary prize of 2000 euros... for the best "beer fiction."

Calle Genova, 21

Here is another specimen of interest, the Museum of Tarot, an occult store just off Sol.

Calle San Alberto, 1

Finally, as seen in various locations around Madrid, the Museum of Ham. 

Carrera de San Jeronimo, 6

As if arranged by Busby Berkeley

The most expensive ham, jamón ibérico de bellota, comes from a free-range black pig that dines on nothing but acorns and herbs as it sashays through forests of oak.  After slaughter, the meat is cured for three years, sometimes four. On this trip to the Museum of Ham, our visitor from Wisconsin wants nothing but the finest: 9 euros ($12) for 100 grams--enough to line two rolls.  The Museum of Ham is both deli and diner, with a bread counter for good measure.  

A range of prices and types. Top r: 90 euros/kilo

100 grams of the best.

We’ve never tasted acorns, but now we think we know their essence, as filtered through a trotter from southern Spain, who rooted in the shade of mighty trees. 

Ham in the afternoon, Plaza de Isabel II

Chagall at the Thyssen: Two Venues, One Vision

The Rooster, 1929

Thyssen-Bornemizsa Museum / Museo Thyssen-Bornemizsa
02/16/12 – Paseo del Prado, 8
 

Fundación Caja Madrid
02/17/12 – Pl. de San Martín, 1

The “golden triangle” of Madrid museums refers to the magnificent three: the Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, all within walking distance of one another.  The Thyssen-Bornemisza could use a bit of name re-branding—those are six syllables many of us can’t begin to pronounce.  How about a monumental, sparkling “T” in the courtyard of the Thyssen?  On a gray day, the courtyard needs some perking up anyway.

Bland courtyard of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (entrance at left)

But for now, just pronounce it “TEE-sun,” and go!  Until 20 May 2012, the Thyssen is hosting a retrospective of the twentieth century Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985) that will leave you weak at the knees.

Bouquet at Window, 1959

Actually, the Chagall exhibit has been split into two locations.  The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (8 euros) covers the first half of the artist’s life, from his early years in the village of Vitebsk, through stints in Paris and New York, until WWII.  The continuation of the exhibit--Chagall settled in the south of France and died in 1985--continues across town at the Fundación Caja Madrid building (free of charge).  Both halves will make you happy. 

Entrance, Fundacion Caja Madrid (free exhibit)

Window in the Country, 1915

In addition to major paintings, bronzes, ceramics and stained glass, the exhibit presents Chagall’s original illustrations for the novel Dead Souls, for the Bible, and for La Fontaine’s fables. A great many of the works have been gathered from private collections: it's likely that you will never see them again in your lifetime.  

There is something very satisfying about retrospectives. Presented this way, the works themselves tell a far better story than a book on Chagall ever could--unless it’s the exhibit catalog, a hefty 39 euro door-stop you will be sorely tempted to acquire.   

Eighteenth Century Dream Kitchen

National Museum of Decorative Arts / Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas
02/08/12 – Calle Montalbán, 12

Something truly fabulous resides on the top floor of the National Museum of Decorative Arts. As you make your way through the other rooms and floors, everyday objects of extraordinary beauty—used by commoners, or by Kings—help illustrate the past four centuries of domestic life in Spain.  Here are a few examples from the many on display: The buttery yellows and Mediterranean blues of Talavera tiles…

Whimsical animals painted on household dishes….

Look closely.  The wild boar is peeing on a tree.

Over-the-top rococo mirrors…

Newt and Callista, this one's for you.

Plush stools…

Hand carriages…

Excess giving way to order, in the form of a neo-classical bassinet…

Finally, a feast for the eyes: an entire kitchen from Valencia, circa 1775-1800.  All 1,604 painted tiles were transported from the original palace, which was pulled down after the Spanish Civil War.  During the eighteenth century it was fashionable to cover every inch of the kitchen walls with trompe l’oeil decorations.  In this lofty kitchen, servants and lords mingle, while hungry cats nibble on whatever they can reach.  

(Tourist has coordinated purple shoes and jacket. Me gustan).

Bad cat.

More bad cats.

Servant with broom appears to be African.

Real items on shelves mix with painted items.

Spilling the chocolate.

Unwitting focus on Spanish docent. I just like this photo.

____________________

As an added bonus, the ground floor of the museum has a visually stunning exhibit on Spanish Graphic Design 1939-1975 (Diseño Gráfico Español 1939-1975).  The temporary exhibit runs through 29 April 2012.