San Fernando Fine Art Royal Academy

This guide to the San Fernando Fine Art Royal Academy in Madrid traces a young Salvador Dalí's stormy years here in the 1920s, from his arrival full of ambition through a student protest that got him thrown out once already. It follows his running argument with the institution and with the towering example of Francisco Goya, who once directed painting here and whose self portrait still hangs on these walls. Stand at the threshold leading into the galleries, where Dalí himself once walked in and out of these arguments.