On my first night in Madrid, I wandered the streets for hours, taking in as much as I could. While I was in the neighborhood of Gran Via, I was wandering side streets in addition to the famous Gran Via thoroughfare, and when I was on Calle de la Montera, this mural caught my eye. You can see the detail above, but I’ll also include a wider view of the whole mural here below.
It’s a pretty elaborate mural, considering all of the architectural detail present in the art. A man with a top hat is driving a horse and carriage down a busy street, perhaps meant to depict Gran Via? There is another horse and carriage present as well as a trolley in the distance. I was curious, who painted this, and when, and what is the story behind it?
This style of art can be called “trompe-l’oeil,” which means “deceives the eye” in French, is a style of painting that uses realistic images in a way that creates the illusion that there is a three-dimensional space despite being painted on a two-dimensional surface. From what I can find, the Spanish artist Alberto Pirrongelli (1942-2022) created this mural, although it’s not clear what year he did it. It seems he did a lot of large-scale trompe-l’oeil murals throughout Madrid, I’ll have to look through more of my pictures and see if I can identify any more.