? Titian, who was never in Spain, met Philip II in Milan in late 1548, when he was still only a prince. He had worked for his father, Charles V, who commissioned religious painting, which Titian was also fond of, but his enormous prestige among Italian nobles came mainly from his erotic paintings, which he used to prioritize some mythological title for cover appearances. Because the Church, very susceptible to this, used to rigorously respect the images supposedly validated by mythology, and especially if the painter claimed to have been inspired by the Metamorphosis of Ovid, much read and revered at that time.
? Philip II commissioned Titian (or he proposed to him and the monarch accepted) six mythological works, which he called “poetry”, precisely because they were said to be based on classical mythology, and which he was sending to Spain throughout ‘a decade, between 1552 and 1562. According to the English critic Peter Humfrey the paintings called by Titian the “poems” constitute “one of the most famous and most influential sets in the history of Western painting.” For various reasons, this group of paintings conceived as an organic whole, as explained by Titian in one of his shipments, which were to be seen continuously and always displayed together, were dispersed over the years, changing owners , residences and museums and it is not even certain that Philip II himself had ever seen them all together. What we do know for sure is that the ladies of the nobility used to pass quickly in front of them, as they were covered so as not to turn the ladies red. 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 in Boston. what must have been the correspondence of the director of the Prado Museum, Miguel Falomir, who had the idea of gathering this exhibition and appears as its curator, in the three years it has taken to materialize , gives vertigo. and, on top of that, the coronavirus that is wreaking havoc around the world, coincided with the opening of the show in Madrid. No matter: the exhibition is superb, out of the ordinary and the people of Madrid (and many newcomers from France, too, for the Easter holidays) who have seen it will not be able to easily forget it. Those of us who were lucky enough to have the wise word of Miguel Falomir himself make cicerone of the visit and give us the well-known explanations about the exhibition, enriched in this case with paintings by Rubens, Veronese, Allori, Ribera, Poussin, Van Dyck and Velázquez, even less so.
? All of these paintings are extraordinary, and that’s something that doesn’t usually happen even in the best exhibitions. And in all of them reigns an unlimited freedom that expresses, at the same time as history when this was only myth and fantasy, the deep reasons that lead human beings to create an art that enriches life and elevates it to the level of our dreams. She also shows the limitations of the reality in which we move, as in a prison in which we can never fully express our expectations to live more and better, to realize all our desires, to enrich our circumstance thanks to beauty and to what we call culture, art, civilization.
? In addition to the freedom with which they are made, these paintings x-ray the community of European and Western culture, explain the smallness of the boundaries that separate men and women when they create and fantasize, show that we form a single multiple and versatile society, united by a common denominator, when we awaken our intimacy, even though we speak different languages and profess different religions (or are against all of them), because when it comes to dreaming and wanting we are all the same. How insignificant it seems, when one walks between these pictures, the despair with which certain minorities insist on exaggerating their differences, as if they, which of course exist, were strong enough to destroy the solidity of a culture that feels the her roots in a deeper, visceral unity, in which we all participate, as she is generous enough to include us all in her dreams.
Perhaps this exhibition is a warning sign of the increasingly frequent deviations and betrayals in Western painting, for so many unscrupulous artists – clowns, in the background – who have forgotten, despite the success that they have with galleries and critics and collectors, the most important thing in their creative endeavor: to invent forms that renew while cementing tradition. Titian’s paintings are exceptional, but no less so are those that accompany him, by Rubens, Allori, Poussin, Van Dyck, Ribera and the exceptional Velázquez.
? The raison d’être of art, in this case painting, as a central complement to existence is also apparent in these few rooms where one seems to live differently, not only freer but also more at ease and more satiated, more aware of the things that matter and the things that don’t matter to propel life and enrich it. Those were times of religious wars and intolerance, but in spite of this, violence and blood disappeared in the works of the masters as shown here, in these enclosures of sleep and perfection, which dignify and resolve us, and in which we see ourselves. portrayed, living another life, richer, more intense, freer, more imaginative, than the one we endure every day as a dogal.
He is not the same person as before, when one comes out of an exhibition like this. Something has changed in the way we are and see things. The world seems uglier and its ugliness stands out in the face of the beauties and delicacies we just saw, but there is no pessimism worth it, because what we have seen is not a miracle but a human fact, hand-built works and a intellectual demand that is possible to achieve with the pugnacity with which those inspired were given to their task, something affordable and without mystery, within reach of all who, like them, work following their inspiration and not contenting herself with it, taking it further, enriching it with details and forms that strengthen and innovate it.
I have rarely been impressed by an exhibition like the one currently on display in El Prat: Mythological Passions. Probably because, in these times, in which despite our optimism about what we believe the victory of science over the natural world, we have seen how vulnerable we are, how precarious life remains, and the immensity of art and the culture, the lights and shadows that are made. I’m sure I’m not optimistic if I say that the best emulsion to protect yourself from the terror we feel when we see so many unforeseen deaths around and the struggle of health workers and doctors to save these lives, what better than all remedies is to make a tour a museum like the Prado and discover why certain paintings are a song to immortality, to survival in the midst of horror.