Don Quixote in Guanajuato

Today we visited El Museo Iconografico de Don Quixote, or the Iconographic Museum of Don Quixote, a truly unique museum you won't find anywhere else but in Guanajuato. 

There is a big bronze statue of the fictional character Don Quixote right outside, and a brilliant baritone singing in front of the house next door, so who we were we to say no?

Who the Heck is Don Quixote?

For those not well-versed in literary endeavors, Don Quixote is a fictional character created by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes in a book rather awkwardly titled The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published, such as the Bokklubben World Library collection that cites Don Quixote as the authors' choice for the "best literary work ever written".

Needless to say, no one in my family has read it, not even Aryk, the writer and English Literature major. This is what Wikipedia says it is about:

The story follows the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) named Alonso Quixano who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante), reviving chivalry and serving his country, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story.

Don Quixote and My Mother

My late mother’s favorite musical was The Man of La Mancha, a 1965 musical about Don Quixote. She would have really enjoyed this museum. If you have ever heard the song The Impossible Dream, you should know it comes from this musical. (I realize this is irrelevant, but I had to share it anyway.) 

The museum, located a couple of blocks off the main square, was founded in 1987 by the collector Eulalio Ferrer Rodríguez, a former captain in the Spanish Civil War who, legend has it, traded a pack of cigarettes for the book Don Quixote, and the book helped keep him sane and captured his imagination during the time he spent in a refugee camp in France. An entrepreneur involved in communications and advertising, he later immigrated to Mexico and brought his devotion to Don Quixote to Guanajuato, which is now famous for its annual, month-long Cervantino festival – even though Cervantes himself never set foot in this city!

Eulalio Ferre Rodriguez

An Amazing Variety of Art

The museum is quite good. It’s situated in what was probably the mansion of a mine-owner, and it houses in 16 rooms a striking collection of different types of pieces by different artists whose theme revolves around the figure of Don Quixote and the rest of the characters in the novel. There are bronze sculptures, surreal paintings, sketches, multimedia pieces and more!

Here are a few of my favorites.