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all Toledo had to offer was the Burial of Seor Orgaz it would still demand a visit.

The other venue with El Greco paintings is the Casa del Greco, but this is closed for restoration. There are a couple of very well known paintings in that collection, notably a view of the city with a map, so they have been re-housed in the nearby Victorio Macho museum.

Given my motivation for visiting Toledo, I doubt whether I would have made the Victorio Macho museum a priority. He's a twentieth century sculptor, born in Palencia, Spain, and who spent many years in Peru. It was the El Greco paintings, re-housed there, that drew me, but I left having experienced one of those wonderful surprises that renders a particular trip not just memorable but etched in the mind, never to be forgotten. Macho's work is astoundingly beautiful. There are bronzes, stonework and drawings. His series of self portraits is masterful, the face full of doubt, but its representation a model of expression and confident technique. A female nude from the back entitled The Guitar is memorable, to say the least. But the most stunning piece was the one a fellow visitor described as just like her grandmother. A small old woman dressed entirely in black sits alone with her head ever so slightly bowed. The head and hands are white. Her expression at first seems detached, at least contemplative, perhaps rather aloof and judgmental. But it changes. A hint of a smile appears as you study her face. And then the sculpture seems to suggest the woman's entire life. She is simultaneously old and young, with the contrast of white flesh and black clothes suggesting youth and age. And it's all there in that enigmatic face.

So having found in Toledo the experience I sought, an experience of a quality I had expected, the works of Victorio Macho provided the surprise which made the visit utterly memorable.

Learn more about this author, Philip Spires.
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