Madrid

Madrid has many nicknames but at this time of year it is the city of Las Meninas, whether all the locals like it or not. Every Fall since 2018, the city is home to 50 or more Las Meninas sculptures around town. Though broadly popular, the statues have also offended purists who think it's artistic travesty. I disagree: artwork should be (and is) constantly being stitched into everyday life as the people's art, kitsch included. Meninas Madrid Gallery belongs to Madrid.

The statues' posture - to me at least - resembles the Infanta Margarita Teresa de Austria in the painting rather than the "maids in waiting," but I quibble... Diego Velásquez' masterpiece of 1656 is in the Prado, and I have cropped it here:

The novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafon, who was born in Barcelona, liked to compare the two cities and he saw Madrid as rather a masculine city:

The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And its a woman who's extremely vain.

Perhaps Las Meninas is reclaiming Madrid for working women? That's in keeping with Velásquez who, after all, called the painting Las Meninas, not "La Familia Real" or "La Casa Real."

These playful sculptures were inspired by the work of influential Spanish artists Manolo Valdés and, more recently, Antonio Azzato. Their Las Meninas sculptures have been widely displayed all over the world. Below is a display of Valdés in Valladolid in 2006. More here.

Madrid has other icons, of course, like the one below, on their coat of arms, showing a bear and a strawberry tree (El Oso y el Madroño), which also appears as a large statue in Madrid in Puerta del Sol, and on the Atlético de Madrid football team badge:

Finally, some historical images of Madrid that I find interesting: