Surely, it was in the late 60s of the last century when a young Anglo-Indian with literary appetites first accessed the Prado Museum. Salman Rushdie spent several hours in this dimly lit mansion that was the Prado back then. He searched, found, and was fascinated by what it housed. But of all the painting masters, three were etched in his enthusiasm: El Bosco for The Garden of Earthly Delights and The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, Velázquez for Las Meninas, and Goya for the Black Paintings. After that initial revelation, Rushdie returned many times. Even when he was under the fatwa and hunted to be killed for the publication of The Satanic Verses, he returned to the museum. And even more times when life seemed to calm down, although peace was not complete. Shortly before the knife attack that almost took him down definitively on August 12, 2022, when a young Muslim, Hadi Matar, stabbed him more than 10 times before giving a lecture in a city in the state of New York, he also passed through here. He has never abandoned that youthful fervor from when he was still becoming the writer he is, the art observer, the serene enthusiast before the spectacle of the masters.
Salman Rushdie (78 years old) has also infused that passion into his writing. In his latest book, The Penultimate Hour (Random House), he presents five stories. In one of them, titled Oklahoma, he spins a tale where El Bosco and Goya are a central part of the story. The Extraction of the Stone of Madness and the Black Paintings. This was the reason for inviting writer Alejandro Vergara, Head of the Flemish Painting and Northern Schools Collection at the Prado Museum, to chat about that: the museum, his experience in the museum, the artists, the paintings. And it was yesterday: at seven o'clock via telematic connection. Once again, Rushdie strolled in a different way among his masters: "This place has always been a great experience for me. And I have three favorites: El Bosco, Velázquez, and Goya. In the case of the latter, the monstrous world of his Black Paintings describes very well the moment we are in now. This dark world of today."
The collection, as Vergara explained, reflects the mood of the Aragonese painter in the final stages of his life. He painted the scenes on the walls of his house on the banks of the Manzanares River (Madrid), popularly known as Quinta del Sordo. "The fact that he made them there, where he lived, gives them an even more extraordinary, more unsettling condition," says Rushdie. "It's easy to appreciate that they come from a state of depression, disappointments, weariness. I can understand those paintings well. I think we all can understand them because they speak for themselves... Goya is a painter of great expressiveness, of a fury very much in tune with this moment. A dangerous time when the US president says he plans to end the civilization of Iran. And 48 hours later announces that he is negotiating a ceasefire with Iran. These surrealistic swings account for the delirium we are in."
Salman Rushdie discovered almost simultaneously the Prado and the work of Jorge Luis Borges. "And with both, the same thing happened to me: they opened new windows in my head. Just like El Bosco and Goya taught me how to combine play and beauty." Because, after all, painting and writing have something of playing and something of building in a different way what is there in front of us. And they also show how we are at each moment, and how sometimes we are the same at all times. "In some of the great masters of painting, we can understand a reflection of the present" explains the author of Joseph Anton. "I think of Goya's portraits of Fernando VII, The Felon. The echo of that terrible king is reproducing today."
Vergara boldly guided this stroll of Rushdie through Rushdie's memory because in the paintings where one has been happy, there is a lot of trace of oneself. "Narrative is always connected to the present in one way or another. And, at the same time, painting is a great narrative of history, although it operates through time in a different way. I now think of the primitive paintings in some caves. Those that sometimes you can only contemplate when those who preserve them illuminate them for a few seconds. In that minimal instant, they reveal something extraordinary: the enigma of yesterday."
And returning to his experiences with Goya and El Bosco, the writer explained why he is so eager before their works. "Goya or El Bosco tell me more than I can imagine". Of the Black Paintings, the whole set overwhelms him, but if he has to choose one, just one, it is The Dog. Another display of agony. And Velázquez? "He taught us to look. And to not truly know who is looking when one looks." He has a visit to the Prado pending. One more