Spanish for art and museums

Entradas are tickets to get in, the same word as entrance. ¿Se pueden hacer fotos? uses se to ask about the rule rather than about you, which is the polite way to ask what is allowed.

La planta baja is the ground floor, and la primera planta is the floor above it, as in British English. Sala plus a number finds a room, and numbers you know from prices work here unchanged.

Spanish has separate words for the object and the image: el cuadro is the painting on the wall, la pintura is painting as an art. Retrato, escultura and boceto are close to English, so they cost almost nothing to learn.

Me llama la atención, it calls my attention, and no me dice nada, it says nothing to me, work like gustar: the painting is the subject, and you are the one it acts on. That is how Spanish expresses most reactions.

El cuadro is the framed thing hanging on the wall. La pintura is paint, or painting as an art form. Asking about un cuadro de Velázquez is right; asking about una pintura de Velázquez is understood but sounds translated. The same split exists in English between a painting and painting, and Spanish just keeps two separate words for it.

The Prado, the Reina Sofía and several national museums open free for the last two hours of the day. La entrada es gratuita a partir de las seis is the phrasing on the sign. The queue is long and the rooms are full, so it is a trade rather than a hack.

At the Reina Sofía, photographs of Guernica are not allowed even though they are permitted elsewhere in the building, and the guards enforce it. If a guard says no se puede, that is the end of the conversation and not the start of one.