Reina Sofia Museum Analysis

The Reina Sofia museum in Madrid is the home to contemporary art. When the building was first founded it was an old hospital that was then transformed into a contemporary building, mixing the old with the new. King Felipe II first founded San Carlos Hospital in the sixteenth century and architects José de Hermosilla and Francisco Sabatini manly constructed the building that stands there today. Today you can find works from artists anywhere from Picasso’s cubism to Salvador Dali’s surrealism and many more. Unlike the Prado museum, the Reina Sofia museum demonstrates the changes in the ways in which art had developed in its styles, painting techniques, and interpretation. In Salvador Dali’s Enigma 20th century painting, he is demonstrating paranoia, leaving meanings and images up to the viewer’s interpretation, which can be interpreted in a formalist approach. Being familiar with Salvador Dali and the work he has produced, I was exited to enter the exhibition where his paranoia paintings were being

We had the main focal figure, his wife Gala peaking out the side, and more in the mountains. The first thing I could see as I looked at this painting was the focal face that resembled the facial structure and figure of a child. This face was created with many different elements and was almost chilling to look at; it had such a person and direct stare towards the viewer. Part of the mountain forms the child’s hair and shape of the head, a sail boat forms one of the eyes, more rock and mountain shapes form the other shape of the eye with the final shape of the mouth and chin. This stunned me the most; I couldn’t quite interpret what was being depicted here. After thinking of what this could be, it made no sense in terms of what the themes demonstrate in the painting. It was a woman sowing, whose back was facing the viewers, her hair was half up half down and you could see her dress and scarf right belong her hair