Eight Favorite Works of Art and Architecture

These are my personal favorites with a brief explanation of eacn-Totally subjective, by the way, and in no particular order.

1. Velazquez’s Las Meninas (Museo del Prado, Madrid). The greatest non-fresco painting I’ve ever seen, and one of the tr great paintings in all of art. The unquestioned masterpiece of a lifetime by one of the true geniuses of painting. The illusion of depth the artist is able to achieve with a layer of paint on a piece of canvas must be seen to be believed.

2. Goya’s Saturn Devouring a Son (Museo del Prado, Madrid). The work of an artist teetering on the brink of insanity. If you see this painting, you won’t have to be told that. There is a painting of the same subject by Rubens, also in the Prado. Compare the two, and you will understand how close Goya was to the edge. He painted this depiction of savagery on the wall of his home, for his eyes only.