Benidorm Brings The Prado to the Beach with Velázquez and Goya

El tecnohito makes its circular screen sparkle, casting flashes of light in all directions while at its feet two men argue about their own greatness and that of other geniuses of their guild who, at least on this occasion, have not awakened from their eternal rest to visit the streets of Benidorm. Around them, several dozen people gather, amused and interested, to listen to their explanations.

They are Francisco de Goya and Diego Velázquez. The first has been dead for almost 200 years. The second has been buried for nearly 400 years. Their flesh turned to dust long ago, but their immortality is kept safe in places like the Museo Nacional del Prado, the art gallery promoted in its day by Isabel de Braganza, second wife of Fernando VII (whom, by the way, Goya hated in a mutual animosity that did not prevent the Aragonese genius from maintaining the position of royal portraitist since the times of Carlos IV) where some of their masterpieces are exhibited.

These works can now be seen, at least in part, throughout October in the exhibition 'The Prado in the Streets', a pictorial tour that has already visited several cities in Spain and has landed in Benidorm where every weekend, in three different sessions, two actors welcome visitors with a dialogue that never existed between two of the greatest artists in our history.

Note! It is not a guided tour. Neither Velázquez nor Goya accompany the visitor throughout the exhibition. Their mission is different. For just under half an hour, they explain, with anecdotes and comic twists, key moments of their lives and those of other painting geniuses as well as the monarchs they both served.

Along the Avenida del Mediterráneo and until next October 27, 50 life-size photographic panels offer a journey through the history of Western art and our country with the help of great masters of painting such as Goya and Velázquez themselves as well as Rubens, Dürer, Rembrandt, Bosch, or Caravaggio.

An exhibition that offers an open-air walk among the great pictorial schools that make up the collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado. Notable aspects include bilingual (English and Spanish) informational panels for each of the works, as well as QR codes that provide more information about the history of the art gallery and its collections.