Visiting the beautiful city of Madrid will be a treat for all art students who travel with school educational trips to the city. The museums in Madrid offer the chance to view some of the great masterpieces of art in wonderful settings. Students are sure to be inspired by what they see.

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The Modern Masters

Madrid offers the opportunity to view a collection of art owned by the Thyssen Family members who are world-renowned art collectors. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is located in a building that brings the new and the old together in its architecture and in its collection too. Modern Masters such as Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin are exhibited along with the Old Masters such as Hans Holbein the Younger and Peter Paul Rubens. The museum really does offer something for everyone, as under the same roof you are able to see Paul Klee’s Rotating House and Canaletto’s The Piazza San Marco in Venice. Whatever the taste of students who travel with school parties, they are sure to be satisfied in this museum.

The Old Masters

The Real Academia Bellas Artes San Fernando exhibits work by the masters of the Flemish, Italian and Spanish schools of art along with wonderful examples of the decorative arts. Egyptian antiquities, beautiful traditional fans and porcelain from Persia are exhibited as well as wonderful sculptures and paintings.  Another museum that should be visited is the Museo Lazaro Galdiano where you can see work by Diego Velazquez, John Constable and Hieronymus Bosch.

Probably the best-known museum in Madrid is The Prado, which was built by order of Charles III in 1785. It was originally intended to hold natural history exhibits but was changed into the Royal Museum for Paintings and Sculptures in 1819. There are around a thousand works of art on permanent exhibition here, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints. Many works from the great masters can be viewed in this museum, including work by Raphael, El Greco and Goya.

Francisco de Goya

Goya was working at the time of the transition from the Old Masters to the foundation of Modern Art. He was not born in Madrid but his early work was shaped during his time as the court painter to the Spanish Royal Family at the Court of Madrid. He died in Bordeaux but his remains are interned in the chapel where he painted the vibrant frescos of The Miracle of St Anthony. Incredibly these were completed in one hundred and twenty days. The Chapel is now The Goya Museum that houses many of his works dating from the 18th Century. Goya’s work is exhibited in many of the museums in Madrid and he is celebrated by many as being the last of the Old Masters but the first of the modern artists.

Visiting Madrid is something that students who travel with school educational trips will relish and be inspired by. The wonderful art that is on show in this city will ensure that the trip will remain in the memory long after the return home.