MADRID (AP) — It’s the eyes peering from the canvases that get him, their gaze piercing the boundary between art and life. That’s why acclaimed Irish novelist John Banville prefers to visit Spain’s Prado Museum during its opening hours — even though he’s been invited to browse anytime as part of a month-long literary fellowship. Still, he doesn’t want to be alone with the multitude of watchers hanging from the walls of the labyrinthine galleries.
“I don’t like coming here after hours, it’s too eerie. The pictures, they look at you,” Banville said turning away from the glare of Diego Velázquez himself looking down from the Spaniard’s greatest work, “ Las Meninas .” The huge 17th-century painting shows the Infanta Margarita, her young ladies-in-waiting, a dwarf, a buffoon with a dog, a nun, a mysterious man exiting through a door, a mirror reflecting King Phillip IV and his queen — and also Velazquez, stepping back from his canvas and looking straight down at the viewer.
The painting — a paragon of Baroque sophistication — has fascinated generations of artists. Banville, with his love of poetic detail, is no different. “I find that ‘Las Meninas’ is always a surprise to me, and a challenge,” Banville told The Associated Press during a recent stroll through the Prado.
“It’s the enigma of it, the strangeness of it. Every time I look at it, it becomes stranger again,” he said, surrounded by throngs of museumgoers. “Velázquez loo.