Madrid, Spain
I think Pasadena’s Norton Simon is by far the best art museum in Southern California. Its combination of exquisite curation and broad accessibility make it unparalleled. My dad took me there often when I was a little boy. And I loved it. In fact, two of the three images I had in my childhood bedroom were from the Norton Simon–a wild jungle scene with monkeys by Henri Rousseau and a playful Rembrandt portrait of a young boy who may or may not have been the Dutchman’s son Titus. (The third image was a properly framed reproduction of El Greco’s gloomy View of Toledo, but that’s a horse of a different–and darker–color.) But my thoughts turned to the Norton Simon today because one of its treasures–Francisco de Zurbarán’s Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Rose–is on loan at the Prado Museum until June 30. Just this one extraordinarily simple, but precise and meditative painting was brought to Spain to hang with other Zurbarán masterpieces from the 17th Century. My dad had a poster of this work in the bedroom where he died. He bought it at the Norton Simon decades ago. So I came to the Prado as quickly as I could to see it, and I was so moved and grateful to see and feel my worlds converge so seamlessly.
