Yesterday was only my third visit to the Prado but it was the most rewarding as I didn’t wander around aimlessly but concentrated for an hour on just a handful of pictures in the galleries by the main entrance at the top of a double flight of steps.
This came about because I hired a guide for an hour and he concentrated my mind. His commentary, assisted by many interpolations on painting technique from my sister (she is an amateur watercolourist so eminently qualified to contribute) made me look at three elements of a few of possibly the greatest pictures in the world: their composition, use of light and depiction of individuals. They are by El Greco, Titian, Velazquez, Rubens and Goya. Not Spanish artists but in the Mediterranean School, a term I have just coined, to encompass the great Baroque painters from the late 16th century to the early 19th century. These artists have informed and inspired subsequent generations of artists and no doubt will continue to do so.
I wonder whether biographers are in some respects like artists? Biographers paint pictures of their subjects setting them in the context of the society in which they lived, choosing to cast more light on some areas than others and depicting their psyche. Nowhere is this more evident than in Douglas Botting’s biography of Gavin Maxwell in which a veil is to a large extent drawn over his sexuality. This was a trade-off with Maxwell’s Estate to get access to other more relevant material and saves the reader from a prurient account of his life.
Likewise royal portraits are sometimes disarmingly frank, say in the physiognomy of the Hapsburgs, or else misleading to portray the sitter more advantageously. Henry VIII might have been better served if the portrait he was shown prior to meeting Anne of Cleves had been more faithful to her likeness. Artemis Cooper’s biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor reveals a man not seen in the same way in his lifetime by his admirers and provoking, at least in me, a fundamental reassessment of him. If you are with me so far, you may have already dismissed my reflections as a load of what’s between Bertie’s legs, you will grasp the similarity between self-portraits and autobiographies.
Today we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum and saw more art than we could digest in a morning.
