San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park
May 19, 2019 and July 28, 2019
We went to see the San Diego Museum of Art’s new featured exhibition, Art & Empire: the Golden Age of Spain, on its opening weekend and then again more recently with a friend. In between our two visits we went to Spain, where we saw other Golden Age paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid. It was fun to put the San Diego exhibition in the greater context.
The SDMA Golden Age exhibition features more than 100 art works, mostly paintings, from Spain’s imperial age. The works include not only those by Spanish artists, but also many by contemporaneous colonial artists. They are grouped thematically, with religious art making up a majority of the pieces on display, and many secular subjects shown as well. The museum’s own Spanish art is gathered here, together with many borrowed pieces.
There were many great works, and we cannot name a favorite. A very memorable piece was Velazquez’s Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus, which is interesting for its focus on the maid, with Jesus and the disciples in the background. It is displayed near a more traditional treatment of that subject.
We entered the museum for free as part of our annual Balboa Park Explorer Pass but paid $5 extra to get into the Art & Empire exhibit. It was well worth it! Without the pass, museum admission is $15, $10 for seniors, and the exhibition is an extra $5.
The exhibition runs through September 2.
After we were done at the museum on our first visit, we had fun riding the carousel over near the zoo. Meredith succeeded in grabbing the brass ring and won a second ride for free.
