The Master of the Prado

by Javier Sierra

  “I couldn’t help noticing how you look at that painting, young man, and I’d like to ask you something. If you have no objections, of course.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, curious.

  “Tell me,” he went on, in a rather familiar tone, as if we’d met before, “why does it interest you so much? It’s not exactly the most famous painting in the museum.”

  Following his gaze, I cast another glance at The Pearl. I didn’t know much about the painting then, let alone how it had been esteemed by King Philip IV of Spain, the monarch with perhaps the most exquisite artistic taste in history.

  There are only four paintings in the Prado that come directly from Raphael’s hand, plus another few from his studio, and various copies from that era Out of all of them, this is without a doubt the best one. It shows the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth sitting in front of some ruins and tending two infants who, upon further examination, begin to look suspiciously similar—the same blond curls, the same chins and cheekbones. One of the infants, who has a subtle halo and is partly dressed in an animal skin, is John the Baptist. The other—the only figure in the painting without a halo—can only be the baby Jesus. St. Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s aging mother—who could also boast an immaculate conception—regards the children with a pensive expression, while the little Savior’s own attention appears to be caught by something or someone outside the frame of the painting. Not St. Joseph, Mary’s husband, who is in the background engaged in some activity impossible to divine. Whatever it is that the young Messiah is looking at is beyond the edges of the scene.

  “Why am I interested in this painting?” I exhaled loudly, taking a moment to weigh my reply. “Actually, Doctor, it’s pretty simple—I want to know what it means.”

  “Aha!” He lit up at this. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re looking at a religious scene, a painting that is meant to be prayed to. The Bishop of Bayeux commissioned this from the great Raphael Sanzio after he was already famous and working for the pope himself in Rome. The French bishop would have heard plenty about Raphael and his paintings of babies and virgins, and would have wanted one for his own devotional purposes.”

  “That’s it?”

  The doctor wrinkled his nose, as if my incredulity amused him.

  “No,” he replied, his voice switching to a low, conspiratorial tone. “Of course that’s not all. Usually in paintings from this period, nothing is what it seems. While you may at first think you are looking at a religious scene, in fact, there is something there that is decidedly unsettling.”

  “Yes, I can sort of feel it,” I admitted, “but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “That’s how real art works, my boy. Paul Klee once said that ‘art doesn’t reproduce what we see—it makes us see.’ If art simply showed us what was there, it would be tedious, we’d tire of it, and in the end, we wouldn’t value it.”

  He paused. “Tell me, do you have a few minutes? I can show you exactly what it is that this extraordinary painting is doing.”

  Raphael and Giulio Romano, The Holy Family, or The Pearl (1518). The Prado Museum, Madrid.

  I nodded.

  “Very well,” he said. “Here’s the first thing you should understand. Though we’re not really conscious of it, we Europeans have for centuries learned about the world principally through myths, stories, and religious tales. These make up our common intellectual heritage. Because we’ve heard them countless times at Mass, or from the mouths of our parents, or in films, we all more or less know the stories of Noah and Moses and Abraham and Jesus. And even if we’re not particularly religious, we know when Christmas and Easter are, and who the Three Wise Men are, and we’re even familiar with the name of one particular Roman prefect: Pontius Pilate.”

  “What does all that have to do with this painting?” I interrupted.

  “A great deal,” he replied. “When someone like us, brought up in the Christian West, stands before a painting like this, we usually know the story that the painting is based on, or we can figure it out. But what if the painting is instead telling us a different story, one that doesn’t fit with what we know, or that questions or contradicts what we know, even in a subtle way? Then—watch out! That sets off alarm bells in our cultural memory.”

  “Yes, but . . .” I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “The reason you’re fascinated by this painting—which, remember, Raphael painted for a bishop—is that the story that it tells is not to be found anywhere in the Bible. Your brain is working, spending a long time searching its archives—consciously or unconsciously—for the story that fits that painting. That’s why the painting holds your attention for so long. But even after searching, you can’t recall the story. And if you think that’s disconcerting for you, imagine just how upsetting it would have been for someone in Raphael’s time!”

  “But,” I tried again, “the Virgin, the baby Jesus, St. Elizabeth, John the Baptist—these are all figures we know well from the Gospels. There’s nothing strange about them.”

  “Such a blessed innocence, my boy! But you must always remember to be careful when you come across common or everyday images in a work of art. The masters often use these ordinary images to signal their most important secrets.”

  “That’s what I really want to know!” I said.

  “I could show you a few that are hidden right in this museum, if you’re interested. If you have time.”

  “Of course I’m interested!” I assured him.

  “Well, then, let’s start with this one here,” he said, sounding pleased with himself, as if we had just signed a contract that committed us to doing something magnificent together. “Let me tell you some more about what this painting is telling us.”

  “Great! Please continue.”

  “Out of all four of the Gospels that you know, only Luke tells of the mysterious pregnancy which is visited upon the old and sterile Elizabeth. Do you see which one she is? There—the one with the turban. Well, Luke reveals this rather unexpected event near the beginning of his Gospel. According to him, the angel Gabriel appears to Elizabeth, wife of the priest Zechariah, and announces to her that she is pregnant with the future John the Baptist. Imagine the husband’s reaction! An angel appears at the door, giving them the child that nature had denied them in all those years of marriage.”1

  “Just a minute,” I interrupted again. “Did you say Gabriel? The same angel who appeared to the Virgin Mary? The one that Fra Angelico painted in The Annunciation hanging in the gallery next door?”

  “The same,” he replied. “You know, Gabriel is quite an unusual angel. He is revered by Christians and Moslems alike. During the Renaissance, they referred to him as ‘the Messenger’ because although he is only mentioned four times in the Gospels, each time he is the bearer of a vital message.”

  Doctor Fovel cleared his throat, and continued in a low voice.

  “But it’s not angels I want to talk about. What I really want you to consider are the two women in The Pearl. Aside from the initial mention of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Luke only mentions her one other time: when she visits the Virgin Mary while both of them are pregnant. Raphael depicted that event in another famous painting hanging in this museum.2 In that one, Elizabeth is shown wearing the same turban and with the same expression the master would use a year later in The Pearl. But what is really incredible is that Raphael would then dare to produce a painting of a meeting that occurs later, after both children have been born—about which not one single reference is made in the entire New Testament.”

  “Are you certain about that?” I asked.

  “Absolutely, my boy,” Fovel replied. “The only visit that Luke describes occurs while both women are pregnant, not later. Moreover, the evangelist supplies details that add color to the event, for instance, that while in his mother’s womb, the future John the Baptist gave a small jump when he heard the voice of the Virgin Mary.3 “Therefore—”

  Fovel took a deep breath, pausing in a way that struck me as rathe
r theatrical, “The fact that the two mothers got together after their children were born to watch them play together, could only come from a source outside the Bible, either apocryphal, or actually from some other text that he would have respected.”

  School of Raphael, The Visitation (1517). The Prado Museum, Madrid.

  “What if Raphael just made it up?” I asked.

  “Making up stories the way you think of it simply didn’t happen in those times, Javier,” he corrected me. “In the time of Raphael, the closest thing to inventing a story was to discover one—everything was based on something real, something that had happened. That’s why even the great Raphael would always work on commissioned projects and under supervision. He had a reputation for being a sophisticated painter, who took care to include context in every one of his paintings. In other words, he followed what was there, what existed. And being so well read, Raphael was knowledgeable about several disciplines, such as archeology, theology, and philosophy, and he liked to use a variety of texts as sources.”

  “Well, if I follow what you’re saying, then this painting derives from a secret source. It has a hidden message that goes against the orthodoxy of the time.”

  “Exactly!” The Master replied enthusiastically, his exclamation momentarily breaking the silence of the gallery. One of the guards appeared, book in hand, to give us a disapproving look before disappearing into the depths of the next gallery, no doubt annoyed at having his reading interrupted.

  Fovel went on, undeterred.

  “Look—we live in a time when no one seems to care anymore about the messages that art offers us. We’ve been made to believe that the only things that are important about a painting are the technical ones: the aesthetics, the methods and pigments used, the facts and circumstances of the artist’s life. And all before asking why the artist decided to create the work in the first place! When we take this materialistic view of art, trying to divine a painting’s message can seem like something speculative, or ephemeral, but it’s not. In truth, it’s paying attention to the spiritual core of the painting, to its true essence. Nonetheless . . .”

  He paused.

  “Yes?” I said, turning to him.

  “Nonetheless, to be able to get at that core, you have to bring a certain humility to the task. When all is said and done, really miraculous art—as this piece most certainly is—can only truly be appreciated by a person with a modest sensibility. Those who insist on filling their heads with impressive facts and figures are missing the point—which is that art like this only works when it astonishes you.”

  “That’s easy enough to say,” I countered, “but art is subjective. Not everyone is amazed by the same things.”

  “True,” he replied. “But the great masters nonetheless made use of certain subtle codes in their paintings, which signal the presence of a hidden message.”

  “What kind of codes, Doctor?”

  Fovel seemed to relish the question—straightening slightly before responding.

  “Well, for example, what the figures in a painting are looking at. In The Pearl, have you noticed where the baby Jesus is looking?”

  “Y-yes, of course . . .” It was as if he’d been reading my mind.

  “When a genius like Raphael paints the Savior gazing out beyond the borders of the canvas, he’s showing us that the painting incorporates the magic of the mystical world. He is leaving it to the viewer to imagine what it is that is capturing the infant’s attention. Thus giving rise to reflection on the supernatural.”

  “Did many painters use that particular code?” I asked.

  “Indeed they did, my boy,” he replied. “This museum is full of examples; you don’t have to go any farther. Take Francisco Ribalta’s St. Francis Comforted by an Angel. Right away you can see that the saint’s gaze is aimed above the apparition that the artist has portrayed. Here, the code is telling us that what has the friar so astonished is something supernatural, something that lies beyond the edge of the canvas.

  “The same thing is true with Murillo’s St. Augustine between Christ and the Virgin. If one day you look for it in these halls, notice how the divine figures who inspire the saint’s visions are actually behind him, leaving St. Augustine with no obvious point on which to fix his gaze. In one sense, Murillo is telling us that St. Augustine is using the eyes of his soul,4 as it were, to witness what is sacred, rather than his mortal eyes. Back in the time of these painters, everyone knew and respected this language of symbols, which is easy to understand, even for us, and which Raphael used so masterfully in The Pearl. You see?”

  Before going on, my new and unexpected philosopher of art lifted his eyes from the painting and glanced quickly around the gallery. I had the impression that he wanted to make sure we were still alone.

  “By the way, my boy,” he began, “are you religious?”

  I hesitated before responding.

  “In a way, yes, I suppose . . .” I muttered, sounding embarrassed.

  “There you go—just like Raphael! Or like the bishop of Bayeux. There’s no need to be embarrassed by that! On the contrary. They were all also religious in their own way. Neither one of them was your usual orthodox, observant Catholic.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve spent my whole life studying the secrets of the paintings in this museum, and you can’t understand most of them unless you also understand a number of other essential things, such as what their creators really believed in, and the context in which they painted these works. Many paintings, like this one here, were created specifically to transmit or to keep a record of certain ideas which, at that time, would have been too dangerous to write down.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Extremely so, Javier.” Doctor Fovel gestured toward the card on the wall that explains the painting to museum visitors. The text was dispassionate, clinical, advising the reader that the painting was in part the product of one Giulio Romano, a disciple of the Raphael school, and that one could discern in the painting the influence of none other than Leonardo da Vinci.

  Fovel turned to me.

  “What are the essential facts here? Both The Pearl and The Holy Family with an Oak Tree, which is also in this museum, were painted in Raphael’s studio in 1518. What that little card does not tell you is that at that time, all of Europe, and Rome in particular, thought that the Christian model of the world was on the verge of collapse. The church’s influence seemed to be waning. As corruption and nepotism established themselves more firmly in the Vatican, Islam was rapidly gaining ground. The Curia—the Vatican court—was more than a little nervous about its future.

  “Extraordinary things were happening everywhere: the discovery of America, new theories of astronomy that questioned the medieval geocentric view, the French invasion of Italy in 1494, Luther’s revolt against the pope, even fear of the end of the world—a great conjunction of the planets in 1524 convinced many at the time that this was imminent. All of these things were very much on people’s minds, including the painters’. Many people went around believing they were living through the end of days. And you see, if you don’t know all that, it’s impossible for you to get the deeper meaning of this painting.”

  “That’s quite a task!” I exclaimed.

  “It does seem enormous. But for the moment, all you really need to know is that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, there wasn’t a cleric, nobleman, or pope unaware of all the prophecies and portents going around. Raphael’s case was especially notable. At the time he painted The Pearl and The Holy Family with an Oak Tree, he was thirty-five and at the peak of his career. His vast talents and knowledge of astrology were displayed on the ceilings of Pope Julius II’s private apartments, where he had painted the glorious School of Athens frescoes, filled with exquisite details that revealed his great erudition.

  “But you should also know that at the same time he was painting these,” he said, gesturing toward the paintings in front of us, “this maestro of Urbin
o was working on one of his great masterpieces: a portrait of his mentor, Pope Leo X, with the cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi. Are you familiar with it?”

  I shook my head, embarrassed.

  “No matter.” He smiled affably. “You’re going to want to see it with your own eyes. It’s a fantastic example of what I call ‘prophetic art.’ A kind of art that in those days, only Raphael dared to practice openly, attracting the most distinguished clients to his studio. Wait until you see it—the painting I’m talking about is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It depicts the pope seated behind a table, his hand on an illuminated Bible, with a small bell and eyeglass beside it. It appears to be a simple group portrait, and a very sober one at that. However, when Raphael painted it, Pope Leo had just barely escaped an assassination attempt unharmed. Once you know that, you can understand why he has that mistrustful look, which again seems to be directed beyond the edge of the frame.”

  “Ah! So you think he is looking for his assassins, is that it?” I said in a low voice, hoping to impress him.

  “Well, as it happens, Javier, his assassin’s identity was no secret. A Cardinal Bandinello Sauli confessed. It seems he had intended to poison Leo X because his personal horoscope and several Vaticinia Pontificum—papal prophecies that were quite popular then—suggested that Sauli was to become the Holy Father who would regenerate the entire church. And of course Sauli wanted to be pope instead.”

  “But popes don’t believe in horoscopes or prophecies!” I protested. “In fact, the church condemns astrology.”

  Doctor Fovel smiled in the face of such naïveté.

  “You’re not serious? Are you aware that the first stone block for St. Peter’s Basilica was laid by Julius II on April 18, 1506, because his own personal astrologer had designated that as the most cosmically propitious date? Or that in the corner of the very same salon in which Raphael had painted his famous School of Athens frescoes, as a kind of permanent horoscope, he also painted a celestial globe showing the constellations exactly as they were on November 26, 1503, the date of Julius’s coronation as pope?”