Among the activities organised by the Pasea Madrid program (Walk Madrid), there was one about painter Francisco de Goya. Goya was probably the most important painter towards the end of the 18th century. He was born in 1746 and died in 1828, having lived through four Bourbon Kings, the Peninsular War, the postwar and the Bourbon restoration.
Goya started his career in Madrid drawing bucolic cartons to be woven into tapestries. He eventually became popular painting portraits for the aristocracy first, the royal family later, until he was appointed court painter. Sometime along his career he contracted an illness that left him deaf, and his character soured. He started experimenting with other media besides canvas and mural paintings, and started creating prints, which are darker and fantastical. During the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s forces, he created paintings about the uprising, and prints showing the most awful part of human condition during armed conflict – the horrors of war. He did not become any more cheerful after the conflict, depicting famine and illness. His last set of art pieces are called the black paintings, black-and-ocre coloured nightmarish pieces which contrast with the life of his initial bucolic scenes and one of his most famous painted – the naked lady La maja desnuda.
In 1807, Napoleon tricked the Spanish king into abdicating and allowing his troops to march towards Portugal. Instead, the French just… stayed in Spain. Madrid was occupied on the 23rd of March 1808. On the 2nd of May, there was an uprising in town, carried out by plain citizens and a very small percentage of the Spanish soldiers. The rebellion was squashed and the rebels shot to death – where “rebel” meant “everyone caught with a weapon”, and weapons had been stones, knives and even plant pots. While the uprising was unsuccessful, it sparkled the Peninsular War, known in Spanish as the War of Independence. Goya, originally open to the French ideas of Illustration, painted two canvasses about the events. The first was “The charge of the Mamelukes” El dos de mayo de 1808 o La carga de los Mamelucos depicting one of the French units charging Madrid’s people; the second was “The third of May Shootings” El tres de mayo de 1808 o Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, showing the executions in central Madrid.
After I arrived in Madrid, I started off the day with a Starbucks’ Iced Strawberry Matcha Tea Latte, a new flavour introduced this month. I had plans for a nicer breakfast, but my train was delayed so I had to get something to go, so it was this and a cookie. I really liked the drink, I hope it stays. I grabbed both and went towards the meeting point.
The visit I attended was called “Goya and La Florida” (La Florida being a small hermit church the painter did murals for), but it was more of an exaltation of the May 1808 uprising. We met the guide next to the Royal Palace, where she summarised Goya’s life. Then, we moved on to a placard next to the palace that memorialises the uprising, and she described the event. We continued on towards the area of Príncipe Pío, saw yet another memorial to the uprising Monumento al Pueblo del dos de Mayo de 1808 and the archaeological remains of one of the forts.
We went up the park Príncipe Pío – next to the Temple of Debod – and the guide explained the military shootings, and read a document. We continued towards the graveyard where the rebels were buried Cementerio de La Florida, next to which stands a monument to Goya Monumento a Goya: four stones, each one with a letter to form the word “Goya.”
We finally reached the hermit church Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, where Goya painted the ceiling frescoes. Over time, they became so degraded that an identical second hermit was built to be used religiously, and the original one kept as a museum and the painter’s pantheon. The ceiling has a dome in which the artist painted St. Anthony’s miracle – as his father had been accused of murder, he resurrected the victim, who could identify the real criminal. The murals are done in al fresco technique, painted on fresh plaster, directly on the walls.
After I left the hermit church, I headed off towards Príncipe Pío station, where I met my relative. There’s this restaurant that I’d been wanting to try for a while, but I needed two other people to tag along in order to get the table I wanted – yes, I wanted a specific table in the restaurant, more on that later. We had a reservation for a late lunch at 15:00, since my guided visit finished at 13:00. We took the underground and alighted at the area of Cuzco, with still some time left.
While checking out how to get to the restaurant, I had came across an Asian supermarket nearby – and that led me to discover Calle General Margallo, a little cluster of Asian supermarkets and stores. We went into Ibero China Madrid and I was happy to buy a bunch of things at a very decent price, mostly Japanese (curry and miso), but I also bought some Filipino Sky Flakes Crackers that I used to get from an acquaintance and had not found for years. Afterwards, we headed to the restaurant.
Comic Planet is an American-food eatery set around the superhero theme – murals on the walls, actual-size figures from DC and Marvel films, and even some prop reproductions. The dishes are “inspired by” superheroes and villains, with a lot of colourful additions.
When making the reservation, I was luckily able to book the table I wanted – and lacking any John Constantine decoration, who is my favourite “almost mainstream” comic character, the table I aimed for was the Aquaman one; I liked Aquaman before Jason Momoa made him officially cool. To be honest, even if I really wanted to check the restaurant out, I was a bit limited on what I could order – way too much coriander. I wanted a burger and a dessert – and a coke chilled with vanilla ice-cream (Coke & Vainilla Ice 1923). Unfortunately, our third party member was almost forty minutes late, so in order to keep the table we needed to exchange desserts for a starter. When the three of us were there, we ordered our mains.
Our starter (for two) was the “Infinity Gauntlet”: cheese sticks wrapped in dough (tequeños) with five sauces – tartar, spicy, mango, BBQ and comic special “cocktail”. The name of the dish refers a weapon created by Thanos, villain in the Marvel comics Avengers, made famous by the films.
My main was a Cat Burger (a reference to Batman’s Catwoman) – a “snobbish” beef patty with caramelised onion, duck foie gras and melted Brie cheese, with regular chips. My relatives ordered a Super Comic Burger (Grilled beef with egg, Oldenburger cheese, fried plantain, guanciale and “kryptonite” – whatever that is. The bread was… blue, and the chips red) and a Hellboy brioche (smoked and spiced pork, natural tomato, Edam cheese, egg, red onion pickled in lime, coriander, mustard and sugar), a reference to Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy, one of the few creator-owned characters out there.
One of the greatest things of the restaurant is that you get to hang around and take pictures with and of everything. The restaurant has two floors, and you are free to explore them. Aside from the murals and real-life figures, there are busts of bad guys, and even a homage to one of the most prolific comic-creators in history, Stan Lee. They also have a store with a bunch of merch (surprisingly… no actual… comics).
Afterwards, because the weather was nice and the forecast was rain all the following week, we walked down to the Comunidad Evangélica de Habla Alemana – Friedenskirche (German-Speaking Evangelical Community – Church of Peace), who were running a video mapping show in their church, Genesis.
The show follows the first three days described in the Christian Bible’s Book of Genesis, as God creates the earth. On the first day, God separated light from darkness; on the second day, God created Heaven (the sky in some versions), and on the third, he created the lands, seas and vegetation (nature in some translations). The church is a Neoromanesque building with mosaics which helps the otherworldly aura of the experience.
The show, designed by the company Enoarium has five parts: First Day: Light; Second Day: Sky; Third Day, first part: Water and Land; Third Day, second part: Nature; Meditation. When we went in, there were already lights on, a pretty universe-like lighting. There were pouffes to sit / lean on the floors and chairs. I chose a pouffe, thinking that it would be hard to stand up later, but oh well. I had about an hour to get round to it. It was a really good idea, because watching the ceiling was much more comfortable than having to look up.
It was a bit difficult to notice when the one day became the next, because the lights flowed really nicely and one theme faded into another. First, the whole church went dark, and there was a bit of light in the centre of the ceiling that became wider and wider. The white light started mixing with blue, which first was the sky and eventually turned into the sea. Gold / brown bits after a while represented the land, then more blue / purple as more sea, and when it turned green we had reached the creation of vegetation, which exploded in tons of colourful flowers. Eventually, everything dissolved into candles and lamps. The music was nice, too, mostly coral in Latin, I think.
Afterwards, we separated and I headed off to the train which – what else is new – was stupidly delayed, so I was stuck at the station for almost 40 minutes until my train came. The only good thing was that another in the same general direction came three minutes before, so most people got onto that, and mine was pretty empty.
JBinnacle – A Travel Logbook 