Schulze reminded me that the Velazquez show was about to end. I wanted to see it again so I took a chance and nipped down early this morning to try get a last-day ticket on the door. In the queue I blended in with a bunch of Independent on Sunday-reading, sensible shoe-wearing, wild-eyed art nutters. One of them was muttering to himself whilst clutching a book on contract law.
In room 1, a hundred audioguides whisper in and out of phase, so we move on quickly, having paid our respects to The Water-Seller of Seville (1618-22).
Room 2 is brilliantly hung, the paintings balanced perfectly. Angels mirror each other in Christ after the Flagellation (c1628) and The Temptation of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1632-3). In the latter painting, Thomas draws and charcoal cross on the wall in his desperation to resist the temptations of the woman sent by his family. But it's strange that the right arm of the cross is entirely cut off by the picture frame.
Room 3 is a restrained affair: court painting. The eyes of his infant portraits are over-large - just a hint of manga. There's a woman looking at the pictures with a small pair of binoculars, which reminded me of Gay Talese, who would pin pages of his writing to a wall and look at the from the other side of the room with binoculars.
In room 4, Aesop (c1636-8) looks like a 17th century Colombo: "oh, just one more fable..." And after looking at the Rokeby Venus for a quarter of an hour, you'll guiltily notice that her raised eyebrows in the mirror know exactly what you're thinking.
In the bookshop I bumped into the show's curator Dawson Carr. I gushed at him about the hang and the pictures so enthusiastically that he would have been justified in backing away nervously. But instead he calmly told me that his colleagues from the Prado had really liked how their paintings looked in London.
What an astonishing artist Velazquez was.
Previously: Velazquez at the National Gallery.
Sigh. I needed you with me when I visited this. Knew nothing about him and had my senses dulled by a lunchtime glass of wine or three. So much potential and I entirely missed the point.
Posted by: Rob | January 21, 2007 at 06:57 PM
Well, next time you have free time we'll go see the three or so that are in London. And immediately on to Madrid to see the rest of them and several that didn't come to London, including The Feast of Bacchus (in which Bacchus looks quite a lot like Rob Annable), The Spinners, and what could be THE WORLD'S BEST PAINTING, Las Meninas.
(... OK, one of the best anyway. Brueghel, Manet and Picasso did some good paintings too. And others. Hmmm, must do a my top five artists/artworks post.)
Posted by: rodcorp | January 21, 2007 at 07:26 PM
A list I'd love to see. Got to be some Carravagio in there surely?
Posted by: Rob | January 22, 2007 at 12:26 PM
Oooh, it's really difficult to choose - so much good art. Duchamp, Manet, Velazquez will probably make the cut. Bacon, Beuys, Brueghel, Caravaggio, Cezanne, Ernst, Goya, Holbein, Picasso, Rembrandt, Ruscha, maybe...
I'll have a think.
Posted by: rodcorp | January 22, 2007 at 05:30 PM