Titian, who was never in Spain, met Philip II in Milan in late 1548, when he was just a prince. He had worked for his father, Carlos V, who commissioned him into religious painting, something Titian was also fond of, but his enormous prestige among Italian nobles came mainly from his erotic paintings, which he preceded a mythological title to perform. cover. . Because the Church, being very sensitive in this regard, strictly respected the images supposedly validated by mythology, and especially if the painter claimed to be inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which was widely read and revered at the time.
Felipe II gave Titian (or he proposed and the monarch accepted) six mythological works, which he called ‘poetry’ precisely because they claimed to be based on classical mythology, and which he wrote for more than a decade, between 1552 and 1562. , sent to Spain. According to the English critic Peter Humfrey, the canvases Titian calls the “poems” are “one of the most famous and influential groups in the history of Western painting.” For various reasons, this group of paintings was conceived as an organic whole, as explained by Tiziano in one of his consignments, which were to be seen continuously and always exhibited together, spread over the years, changed hands, homes. And museums and it is. not even sure that Felipe II would ever have seen them all together himself. What we know for sure is that the ladies of the nobility used to pass by quickly as they were covered so as not to blush the ladies. The six works that Titian painted and called ‘poetry’ are currently in the Wellington and Wallace Collections in London, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Scottish Galleries in Edinburgh, the National Gallery in London and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. What to do The correspondence from the director of the Prado Museum, Miguel Falomir, who had the idea of putting this exhibition together and which is mentioned as curator of the three years it took to come into being, is staggering. , the coronavirus that ravages the entire world coincided with the opening of the show in Madrid. It doesn’t matter: the exhibition is fantastic, extraordinary and the locals (and many French newcomers for Holy Week holidays too) who have seen it will not soon forget it. Those of us who were lucky enough to have the wise word of Miguel Falomir himself act as a guide for the visit, giving us the usual explanation of the exhibition. ion, in this case enriched with paintings by Rubens, Veronese, Allori, Ribera, Poussin, Van Dyck and Velázquez, even less so.
All these paintings are extraordinary, and that’s something that usually doesn’t happen, even in the best of exhibitions. And in all cases there is an unlimited freedom that at the same time, when history was only myth and fantasy, expresses the profound reasons that led people to create an art that enriches life and elevates it to the height of ours. dreams It also shows the limitations of the reality in which we move, as in a prison where we can never fully express our expectations to live longer and better, to fulfill all our desires, to enrich our circumstances through beauty and what we call culture. , art, civilization.
In addition to the freedom with which they were created, these paintings X-ray the community of European and Western culture, explain the triviality of the boundaries that separate their men and women when they create and fantasize, show that we are one manifold and multifaceted society, united by a common denominator, when we reveal our privacy, despite speaking different languages and professing different religions (or we are against all), because when it comes to dreams and wishes, we are all the same too . How insignificant it seems, when one walks among these paintings, that the despair with which certain minorities insist on exaggerating their differences, as if they, which exist naturally, are strong enough to destroy the solidity of a culture rooted in a deeper culture. and more deeply rooted unity, in which we all participate, for she is generous enough to include us all in her dreams.
Perhaps this exhibition is an alarm signal for the increasingly frequent deviations and betrayals in Western painting, for so many unscrupulous artists – clowns, deep down – who, despite their success with galleries and critics and collectors, are the most important in his creative endeavor: to invent innovate while strengthening tradition. Titian’s paintings are exceptional, but the paintings that accompany him, by Rubens, Allori, Poussin, Van Dyck, Ribera and the exceptional Velázquez, are no less.
The raison d’être of art, in this case painting, as the central complement of existence is also evident in these few rooms where one seems to live in a different way, not only more freely but also more comfortable and more saturated, more conscious. of the things that matter and the things that don’t matter to boost and enrich life. Those were times of religious wars and bigotry, but nevertheless violence and blood disappeared in the works of the masters, as shown here, in these areas of dream and perfection, which dignify and dissolve us, and in which we see ourselves depicted, another lead life, richer, more intense, freer, more imaginative than the life we endure every day like a noose.
You are no longer the same person as before when you leave an exhibition in this way. Something has changed in our way of being and seeing. The world seems uglier and its ugliness stands out in the light of the beauties and delicacies we have just seen, but there is no pessimism worthy because what we have seen is not a miracle but a human fact, works built with our hands and a intellectual claim that can be achieved with the combative spirit with which the inspired gave themselves up to their task, something affordable and without mystery, within the reach of anyone who, like them, works after their inspiration and is not satisfied with it, further enriching it with details and shapes that reinforce and innovate it.
A few times I have been so impressed by an exhibition like the one currently on display at the Prado: Mythological Passions. Certainly because in these times, despite our optimism about what we thought science triumphed over the natural world, we have seen how vulnerable we are, how precarious life remains and the immensity of art and culture. lights and shadows of which they are made. I’m sure I’m not optimistic when I say that the best emulsion to protect ourselves from the terror we feel when we see so many unforeseen deaths and the struggle of health workers and doctors to save those lives is better than all remedies is walking, museum like the Prado and discovering why certain paintings are a hymn to immortality, to survival in the midst of horror.