MikePadgett.com

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

— Something appeals to me about the Thyssen-Bornemisza and it's not just the fine collection of paintings.”

Virgin of the Dry Tree – Petrus Christus / © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

There’s something different and rather appealing about this art museum.

I ask myself: is it because the Thyssen-Bornemisza family has made its large private collection accessible to the public? Or could it be the unusually broad range of works on view?

These are both important facts, but in reality what I like best is the colour of the walls: a warm, sympathetic tone somewhere between pink gypsum and smoked salmon, and it shows off the paintings beautifully.

The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is one of Madrid’s three great art musea, along with the Prado and the Reina Sofia. Rather than being reflective of the tastes of the Spanish royal family or dedicated to more modern trends, this collection spans every great period of picture art from byzantine-influenced, pre-Renaissance Italian works right up to hyperrealism and pop.

Having visited not a few great European galleries in the last decade, some of the artists represented here seem almost like old acquaintances: Uccello, Petrus Christus, Baldung Grien, Jan van Eyck, the Bellini brothers, Mondrian, Bonnard and Hopper to name but a very few.