Time to get to Spain -- and soon

If I ever get to Spain -- Lord willing -- the world-famous trio of Madrid art galleries is the one thing I see in the capital (Barcelona's where I really want to spend a good deal of time).

But I'm having a hard time figuring out which of the three galleries is highest on the must-see list. All of them pack a punch, but the Thyssen-Bornemisza seems to put on some of the most intriguing exhibitions in Europe. And now a special exhibition is forthcoming on the endlessly fascinating Eros vs. Thanatos, with an equally disturbing, but also fascinating twist: Sexual Desire and Death. (Pictured: Giambattista Tiepolo's "The Death of Hyacinth.")

"The Tears of Eros" will run from Oct. 20 to Jan. 31, 2010, with works taken from Georges Bataille's early 20th century ideas and writings on the subject. From the promo:

"The exhibition focuses primarily on 19th-century European painting and sculpture, including the work of Canova, Ingres, Delacroix, Millais, Moreau and Rodin, but also looks back to earlier periods, in particular the Baroque with Rubens and Bernini."

Oh God, am I there! Would I love to be! But wait, there's more:

"In addition it looks at later art, for example, the presence of 19th-century erotic themes in Surrealism and its wake. Figures and episodes derived from classical mythology and from the Judeo-Christian tradition make up this survey, which is organised into two principal sections: From Temptation to Sacrifice, which looks at the presence of death in erotic passion through themes such as the Birth of Venus, Eve and the Serpent, the Temptations of Saint Anthony, and the Kiss, and a second section entitled The Eternal Sleep, which analyses the subject of death and dying transformed into a trance similar to amorous ecstasy, present in themes such as Apollo and Hyacinth, Venus and Adonis, Mary Magdalen and the skull, and the “beautiful suicide victims”, Cleopatra and Ophelia."

Got to find a way to get there.