Madrid Art: Your Choice Blog Post

This painting that I choose is called "La Siesta" by Pintado.  This painting portrays four girls resting in the grass.  The colors all mix together to create dimension.  There is darker and lighter color green that shows the shadows and hills of the grass.  Other things that cause dimension is the different colors in the dresses.  This causes the dresses to look wrinkled which adds to relaxed state of the girls.  Other features include a dark area at the far left corner that show something that I cannot quite figure out.  It seems like it is some kind of animal but it is definitely giving the viewer imaginative qualities to figure it out on their own.  

This painting is important culturally because of the Siesta that they celebrate each day in Spain.  This is a cultural thing that really effects the way they live.  It makes the day different than the way we experience each day because they eat later, sleep in later, and go home for a chunk of their day.  It also makes it so their lunch is the big meal of the day.  This is different than for us because we usually have our big meal at night.  It also makes their day different because they spend time eating lunch specifically.  The Siesta makes it possible to have food like Tapas that take several hours.  These are all things that contribute so much to their culture and effect the way they spend their day each day.  

This painting does not necessarily contribute to this city's status as a capital.  It is not super famous and not something that people come specifically to Spain to see.  However, it is very beautiful and the style of painting really is specific to Spain.  It also shows so much of what Spain is as a country because of how much of the Siesta contributes to Spain's culture.  It also shows how much of Spain's influence has on other countries.  Many countries participate in the Siesta because of the earlier concuring of other countries specifically in Latin America.  The Siesta depicts all of this in this painting.