No Clothes on Anybody...Sickening!

In that ye old classic, HOME ALONE, our beloved prankster, Kevin MacCallister, utters those immortalized words as he happens upon his brother’s hidden stash of PLAYBOYs… “No clothes on anybody…sickening!” My sentiments exactly, Kevin. Well ok , not really, but close. I have two major points I would like to discuss about my trip to the Prado museum today…

1. Why are the subjects in art NEVER wearing any clothes?

And

2. What happened to all the “male parts” on half of the statues?

As the daughter of an artist, I’ve likely just sent my father to an early grave. Now don’t get me wrong, I took more away from this trip to one of the world’s most famous art museums than the two aforementioned points. How can one not be impressed when surrounded by the likes of Goya, Velaquez, and Rembrandt, their intricate work and attention to detail coupled with the fact that these men painted these pieces 3 to 400 years ago…but let’s be serious, you won’t learn anything at all about art in this post that I didn’t completely make up, so we may as well get back to my keen observations.

1. I DO NOT understand. If artists are trying to make their subjects life-like then why, oh why, are they constantly naked. I understand wanting to capture the beauty of the human form and blah blah but really, planting crops, playing instruments, fighting wars, all naked as a jay bird. Now that’s just not good sense.

And

2. Seriously, lots of berries today, not a lot of twigs. Let me explain more clearly though. It’s not that the “parts” were never there to begin with. They were. In fact, they were quite clearly chiseled off. King So and So clearly pissed off Queen La- Tee- Dah and she took it out on every man she could find. Honestly though, if I could ever figure out a way to google “missing weiners at the Prado” without getting kicked around to some medieval porn site, I assure you I would. My uneducated guess is that some monarch or clergymen was a) offended or b) perhaps a smidge jealous and made a decree to have them removed. Upon further contemplation, where are they being kept? Imagine stumbling upon a jar of male bits on your first ever archeological dig. You can bet they were never expecting that.

On a final note, I saw a sculpture of a daughter breastfeeding her…FATHER because he was in jail and starving. I don’t care how bad things get, that is never appropriate.

By the way, can one of my family members please not read this to my 94 year-old grandmother? While you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and put a call into Tim and make sure he’s still breathing. Thanks or uhh, Gracias.

And NowEuropeToDate...