Greatest Paintings: The Ghost of Spain – Velázquez’s Las Meninas

Hello, everyone. Tom Holland here, and I am joined by the great Laura Cumming, and we are looking at painting in history, four paintings that reflect a particular period in history. We'll be looking at the history of the painting itself, the life of the artist, and teasing out the mysteries that shadow all four paintings. And today we are looking at Las Meninas by Diego de la Valesquez, the painting that Laura Cumming, who is joining me, she sees it as the greatest painting of all time, and we will be exploring why. Hello everybody and welcome to the second in our series on great paintings and how they relate to the historical context and all of that and my guest today as it was in our first episode the previous episode the great laura cumming and laura today we are looking at a painting that is very close to your heart it is las meninas so that is maidservants ladies-in-waiting whatever um by diego de valesquez uh the great 17th century spanish painter las meninas painted in 1656 and it's close to you both because you think it is the greatest painting of all time, but also it's personal to you, isn't it? It is. I saw it without knowing I was going to see it, which is really how anyone listening to this programme if they can possibly go and just get this same experience I had My father had died He was a painter And I was absolutely dejected And I went to Madrid and I had no idea what the Prado had in it I mean, I was very young. And I went to the room where it hangs in the Prado and I didn't see it at first. There was a crowd in front of it. There's a crowd in this painting. And the crowd started to move. And for a very brief moment, and this kind of illusion of magic is part of the painting. For a very brief moment, I thought the people in the painting were real people. And I wrote a little account of how it struck me, which if you will allow me, I will read. And also, it will tell people who've never seen the painting what is in the painting. Yes, and what it first looks like. You are here. You have appeared. Their eyes announced your arrival. all these people looking back at you out of the shadows, the little princess and her maids with their ribbons and bows and their shimmering clothes, a tiny page and the tall dark painter, a massive dog and a lady dwarf, the courtiers whispering or rapt or poised ready in the doorway at the back. All these people are gathered here in this place for your presence. They were waiting to see you, and now you've entered the room. Not the real room in the Prado around you, but the room in the painting as it mysteriously seems. This is the first sensation that strikes when you see Las Meninas in the Prado, a picture the size of life and fully as profound that you are walking into their world becoming suddenly as present to these people as they are to you And in that moment time stills in a flash of light in the darkness these brilliant little children, the princess and her attendants, twinkling out of a monumental volume of shadow that fills most of the high chamber in which they appear, away down at the bottom in this little pool of light, brief and bright as fireflies. It's the most spectacular curtain-raiser in art, and it sets the whole tenor of the painting. Brilliant, Laura. So that's the opening to your book, The Vanishing Man, a study of Velázquez. And just listening to you read that, in this painting, we are in the afterwash of the golden age. So the golden age was the 16th century, the age of Philip II, the Escorial, the Spanish Armada, the treasure fleets coming to Iberia from the new world laden down with silver and gold. But we're now in the 17th century, and there's a sense that Spain's greatness is starting to fade. And I suppose the classic illustration of that, the classic kind of cultural monument to that is Don Quixote, which is all about illusion and reality, the interface between what is created and what reality actually is. And in a sense, Las Meninas is playing with similar things, isn't it? Because it's saying that, you know, in that account, you were saying you are entering a world that is created. And what is the relationship of what is created to what is real? And that is an issue for the whole Spanish court, because the show of the court is all about how Spain remains the world's superpower But the reality is altogether shabbier and more run down thank you for listening Subscribe to The Restless History Club at therestishistory for the entire episode. We'll be back next week, Laura and me, with The Skating Minister by Henry Rayburn. And if you want to hear that and the whole series, well, you know what you've got to do. Hi guys, it's Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci here from The Rest is Politics US. We have just recorded a four-part series that's all about Donald Trump becoming the global phenomenon we know him as today. You know, Katty, I knew Donald Trump since 2005. So in this series, we rewind the clock right back and dig into the people, the events and the scandals that built him. Yeah, we're going to take you from his days in military school, what he learned there, how he actually weirdly thrived there, to his father's ties to the Ku Klux Klan, his days as a business mogul in New York, and how that really shaped his worldview and his way of doing business. And we're going to explore parts of the Trump story that you might never have even heard of. Not to mention, Cady, the nefarious trickster, Roy Cohn. Where's my Roy Cohn? I heard him say that so many times. I mean, I was only there for 11 days, Cady. Where's my Roy Cohn? Well, let me tell you something. If you want to know who Roy Cohn was, you're going to tune into this series. With all the headlines that come out of Trump World every single day, we just felt there'd never really been a more important time to try to understand the America that created Donald Trump. To listen to episode one of Becoming Trump, head over to The Rest is Politics US wherever you get your podcasts.